Gia Maione

Gia Maione Prima (born May 20, 1941 in Roebling (New Jersey) , † September 23, 2013 in Florida ) was an American singer and the widow of the singer Louis Prima .

life and career

Gia Maione had piano and singing lessons as a child; after graduating from Toms River High School in New Jersey in 1959, she received the National Arion Society Award in Music . With the intention of studying at the Julliard School of Music in New York City, Gia worked at the Howard Johnson's restaurant and also had piano and singing lessons. She was working as a cloakroom attendant in a New Jersey casino at the age of 21 when she met Louis Prima , who was looking for a new vocal partner after breaking up with Keely Smith , with whom he was on stage. After two years, Gia Maione became Prima’s fifth wife in 1963. They have appeared together in casinos and clubs, as well as on television shows such as the Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and with Merv Griffin , Steve Lawrence , Art Linkletter , Bob Hope and Dean Martin .

With Louis Prima she recorded 14 albums and numerous singles, such as Ooh, Look What You've Done to Me / Big Daddy with Sam Butera and The Witnesses for Capitol Records (1962) and the pop songs Sunday Lover, On the Other Side of Tears and I've Got a Crush on You (1964). After her husband's death in 1978, she took care of the estate and published recordings on the Prima Music, LLC labels and the louisprima.com website . This included Primate's album Angelina with Italian novelty songs .

Web links

• Obituary at Legacy.com
• Gia Maione at Discogs (English)
• Gia Maione in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Obituary ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)