Monica Lewis

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Monica Lewis (1951)

Monica Lewis , actually May Lewis , (born May 5, 1922 in Chicago , Illinois - † June 12, 2015 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American singer and film actress .

Life

Private life

Monica Lewis was born May Lewis in Chicago in 1922. Her parents were both in the music business. The father as a composer and pianist, the mother as a singer with the Chicago Opera Company.

Lewis was married twice: from 1945 to 1947 with the music producer Bob Thiele , then from 1956 until his death in 1996 with the film producer Jennings Lang . Her brother Marlo Lewis worked as a television producer. Monica Lewis last lived in Woodland Hills , a borough of Los Angeles, where she died in her apartment on June 12, 2015 at the age of 93.

Career

At the age of 17, Lewis first appeared as a singer on a radio show and made it through a casting in the band of Benny Goodman , who was looking for a replacement for lead singer Peggy Lee , who dropped out in 1943 . With the help of Goodman, Lewis gained greater prominence and performed both with his band and as a solo singer on major radio and television shows. In the United States, she was best known in 1947 as a singer for a Chiquita commercial . Further recordings were made between 1945 and 1982 with jazz musicians such as Yank Lawson , Carmen Mastren , Bud Freeman , Frank De Vol , Chuck Domanico , Lee Ritenour and Kirk Whalum .

In 1950 she signed her first film contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and played there in several music films. In the 1970s, Lewis made her best-known film appearances in a number of disaster films . These include roles as Lorne Greene's secretary Barbara in Earthquake in 1974 or that of flight attendant Anne in Lost in the Bermuda Triangle in 1977. In 1988 she retired from the film business after a number of guest appearances in television series.

Filmography (selection)

Movies

TV Shows

Unless otherwise mentioned, one sequence in each case

Web links

Commons : Monica Lewis  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Monica Lewis died at the age of 93. In: The world . June 14, 2015, accessed May 28, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Monica Lewis, Actress Who Sang in Chiquita Banana Cartoons, Dies at 93. In: Variety . June 12, 2015, accessed May 28, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed June 13, 2015)
personal data
SURNAME Lewis, Monica
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lewis, May (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer and film actress
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago , Illinois , United States
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 2015
Place of death Los Angeles , California , United States