Velvet-voiced crooner known for tunes like ‘In the Still of the Night’
Vic Damone, the postwar crooner whose intimate, rhapsodic voice captivated bobby soxers, middle-age dreamers and silver-haired romantics in a fivedecade medley of America’s love songs and popular standards, died Sunday in Miami Beach, Fla. He was 89.
Ed Henry, a family friend, said the cause was complications of respiratory failure.
Damone suffered a mild stroke in 2000 but recovered and retired in 2001 after a farewell tour that included appearances at the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall. He came out of retirement a decade later to give one last performance in Palm Beach, Fla., where he lived.
For anyone old enough to remember the age of phonograph records, the velvet baritone of Damone was an unforgettable groove in a soundtrack that also included Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Tony Bennett, singers who arose in the big band era and reached peaks of popularity in the 1950s.
Damone, a decade younger than Sinatra, never quite became the pop music institution that the others did. Critics said he did not possess Sinatra’s vivid personality or Bennett’s range and sheer energy, although his smooth, unruffled delivery was similar to Como’s.
But many critics said he had the best natural gifts in the business: a voice and style that made emotional connections with an audience, especially in nightclubs, with sensitive renditions of songs like “In the Still of the Night,” “You’d Be So Easy to Love,” “I Don’t Want to Walk Without You” and “Come Rain or Come Shine.”
And he proved durable. After winning on the radio show “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts” in 1947, he recorded some 2,500 songs over 54 years. He had his own radio and television programs, made movies, survived rock ’n’ roll and its noisy offspring and became a mainstay of the Las Vegas Strip, and nightclubs where audiences were so close he could almost reach out and touch them with his voice.
Along the way, he made millions, entertained presidents and royalty, refused a part in “The Godfather,” married five times, had four children and underwent analysis. He also survived a brush with the mob.
His personal life made headlines. In 1954, he married the actress Pier Angeli. They were divorced in 1959, but for six years battled over custody of their son. Angeli committed suicide in 1971.
In 1963, Damone married Judy Rawlins, with whom he had three daughters. They were divorced in 1971, and she killed herself in 1974. His marriage to Rebecca Ann Jones, in 1974, also ended in divorce.
He married the singer and actress Diahann Carroll in 1987, and they divorced in 1996. In 1998, he married Rena Rowan, who died in 2016 after a stroke.