Singer half of popular Vegas, nightclub act 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 appearances on talk shows, in nightclubs and on the stages of Las Vegas. The duo took inspiration from the music of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern and other songwriters.
Soon after Elvis Presley and other rock music pioneers began to dominate radio and records, Lawrence and his wife were approached about changing 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 said jokingly.
By the 1970s, Lawrence and his wife were a top draw in Las Vegas casinos and nightclubs across the country. They also appeared regularly on television, making specials and guest starring on various shows.
In the 1980s, when Vegas cut down on headline acts and nightclubs became scarcer, the pair switched to auditoriums and drew large audiences.
Lawrence launched his professional singing career at age 15. After two failed auditions for the “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.
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 program set the pattern for the network’s long-running “The Tonight Show.”
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?”
He appeared in such shows as “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “Gilmore Girls,” “Diagnosis Murder” and “The Nanny.”
He and his wife did star together in “The Steve Lawrence-eydie Gorme Show” in 1958 and Lawrence had his own series, “The Steve Lawrence Show,” in 1965.
He made it to Broadway in 1964 — and earned a Tony Award nomination — in the musical “What Makes Sammy Run?” based on Budd Schulberg’s classic novel about a New York hustler who claws his way to the top of the entertainment world.
Lawrence also had character roles in a few movies, most notably “Stand Up and Be Counted,” “The Blues Brothers,” “Blues Brothers 2000,” “The Lonely Guy” and “The Yards.”
Born Sidney Liebowitz on July 8, 1935, in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, Lawrence was the son of a Jewish cantor who worked as a house painter. He began singing in his father’s synagogue choir at 8, moving on to bars and clubs by his midteens. He took his name from the first names of two nephews.
He and Gorme had two sons, David, a composer, and Michael. Long troubled with heart problems, Michael died of heart failure in 1986 at age 23.