Inger, entertainer was half of popular stage duo Steve & Eydie
NEW YORK — Steve Lawrence, a singer and top stage act who as a solo performer and in tandem with his wife Eydie Gorme kept Tin Pan Alley alive during the rock era, died Thursday. He was 88.
Lawrence, whose hits included “Go Away Little Girl,” died from complications due to Alzheimer’s disease, said Susan DuBow, a spokesperson for the family.
Lawrence and Gorme — or Steve & Eydie — were known for their frequent appear- ances on talk shows, in night clubs and on the stages of Las Vegas. The duo took inspi- ration from George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern and other songwriters.
Soon after Elvis Presley and other rock music pio- neers began to dominate radio and records, Law- rence and his wife were approached about chang- ing their style.
“We had a chance to get in on the ground floor of rock ‘n’ roll,” he recalled in a 1989 interview. “It was 1957 and everything was changing, but I wanted to be Sinatra, not Rick Nelson.
“Our audience knows we’re not going to load up on heavy metal or set fire to the drummer — although on some nights we’ve talked about it,” he joked.
Although Lawrence and Gorme were best known as a team, both also had huge solo hits just months apart in the early 1960s.
Dionne Warwick, a long- time friend, said in a statement that Lawrence was “resting with comfort in the arms of the Heavenly Father. My heartfelt condolences go out.” Carol Burnett, in a statement, called Lawrence one of her favorite guests on her variety show. “He was also my very close friend,” she said. “He will always be in my heart.”
Lawrence scored first in 1962 with the achingly roman- tic ballad “Go Away Little Girl,” written by the Brill Building songwriting team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Gorme matched his success the following year with “Blame It on the Bossa Nova,” a bouncy tune about a dance craze of the time that was written by Brill hitmak- ers Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.
By the 1970s, Lawrence and his wife were a top draw in Las Vegas casinos and night- clubs across the country. They also appeared regu- larly on television, making specials and guesting on var- ious shows.
In the 1980s, when Vegas cut down on headline acts and nightclubs became scarcer, the pair switched to auditoriums and drew large audiences.
“People come with a gen- eral idea of what they’re going to get with us,” Lawrence said in 1989. “It’s like a product. They buy a certain cereal and they know what to expect from that package.”
Lawrence launched his professional singing career at age 15. After two failed audi- tions for “Arthur Godfrey’s
Talent Scouts” TV show, he was accepted on the third try, going on to win the competition and the prize of appearing on Godfrey’s popular daytime radio show for a week.
King Records, impressed by the teenager’s strong, two-octave voice, signed him to a contract. His first record, “Poinciana,” sold more than 100,000 copies, and his high school allowed him to skip classes to promote it with out-of-town singing dates.
After several guest appearances on Steve Allen’s television show, Lawrence was hired as a regular. When the program became NBC’s “Tonight” in 1954, he went with it, singing and exchanging quips with Allen. The series set the pattern for the long-running “The Tonight Show.”
“I think Steve Allen was the biggest thing that happened to me,” said Lawrence, who stayed with the show’s host for five years, honing his comedic skills and attracting a wide audience with his singing. “Every night I was called upon to do something different. In its own way it was better than vaudeville.”
Early in the series’ run, a young singer named Eydie Gorme joined the cast. After singing together for four years, she and Lawrence were married in 1957.
Until Gorme’s death, in 2013, they remained popular, whether working together in concert or making separate TV appearances.
His reasoning: “If we did television together all the time, why should anyone go see us in a club?”