Louis Leo Prima was an American entertainer, singer, trumpeter and bandleader.
58 Facts About Louis Prima
2.
Louis Prima made prominent use of Italian music and language in his songs, blending elements of his Italian and Sicilian identity with jazz and swing music.
3.
Louis Prima is known for providing the voice for the orangutan King Louie in the 1967 Disney film The Jungle Book.
4.
Louis Leo Prima was from a musical Italian American family in New Orleans, Louisiana.
5.
Louis Prima was the second child of four; his older brother, Leon, was born in 1907, while his sisters Elizabeth and Marguerite were younger.
6.
Louis Prima's mother was a music lover, and she made sure that each child played an instrument.
7.
Louis Prima was assigned the violin and started out playing at St Ann's Parish.
8.
Louis Prima became interested in jazz when he heard black musicians, including Louis Armstrong.
9.
When Leon left the house to spend one summer in Texas, Louis Prima practiced continuously on his worn-down cornet.
10.
Louis Prima formed a band in 1924 with his childhood friends "Candy" Candido, Irving Fazola and Johnny Viviano.
11.
Louis Prima attended Jesuit High School but transferred to Warren Easton High in the fall of 1926.
12.
Louis Prima joined Joseph Cherniavsky's Orchestra in 1929 at Jefferson Parish.
13.
Louis Prima got a temporary job playing on the steamship Capital that docked on Canal Street.
14.
From 1931 to 1932 Louis Prima occupied his time by performing in the Avalon Club owned by his brother Leon.
15.
In September 1934, Louis Prima began recording for the Brunswick label.
16.
Louis Prima was a comedian with potential to become a singer.
17.
In March 1936, Louis Prima recorded "Sing Sing Sing", which subsequently became a hit for Benny Goodman.
18.
Louis Prima fired McAdams so that he could have Frank Federico, his childhood friend, play the guitar.
19.
The couple had a few problems; one of the worst was that Louis Prima denied much about his past.
20.
Louis Prima never confessed to Alma that he had a daughter until she found out from a tax return.
21.
Louis Prima continued to travel along the East Coast with his band.
22.
Louis Prima appeared at Billy Rose's Casa Manana club in May 1938.
23.
Louis Prima earned nearly a quarter million dollars throughout seven weeks at Casa Manana.
24.
Louis Prima was booked by William Morris Agency in late 1938, which sent him to Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Miami Beach, New Orleans, and St Louis.
25.
In 1939 Prima was under contract to appear in black theatres in New York, Baltimore, Boston and Washington DC First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt attended his performance in Washington DC, and formally invited him to President Franklin D Roosevelt's birthday celebration.
26.
Louis Prima appeared in photographs with the President, which ultimately boosted his publicity.
27.
Louis Prima performed the Italian songs at the Strand Theatre in New York.
28.
Louis Prima had several big hits in the summer of 1945, including "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time" and "Bell-Bottom Trousers".
29.
Louis Prima ignored the payments until they piled up to about $60,000, which forced him to write a settlement check of $45,000 plus $250 per week.
30.
Louis Prima wanted $100,000 and creative control of his role, which was rejected by Warner Brothers.
31.
Louis Prima had protracted disputes with the Strand Theatre in New York City and Majestic Records, and he flatly refused to allow a former songwriter to advertise herself as "formerly featured with Louis Prima's orchestra".
32.
Louis Prima had expensive tastes: he shopped at luxury clothing stores and always wore top-brand suits.
33.
Louis Prima spent great sums on horse racing and his own private stable of horses.
34.
Louis Prima said he enjoyed gambling because it relaxed him; riding was another one of the things that relaxed him the most outside of his busy performing life.
35.
Louis Prima knew each of his horses well and read about training.
36.
Louis Prima purchased a boat for his third wife Tracelene Barrett for their honeymoon on the Hudson River.
37.
Louis Prima landed the part and was traveling with his band.
38.
Louis Prima signed with Columbia Records in the fall of 1951 to keep up with the rapid changes in the marketing industry.
39.
Louis Prima was open to criticism, and he wanted to make her a star.
40.
Louis Prima tried to find the style that fit her correctly, especially since rock and roll was emerging.
41.
Louis Prima was not against rock 'n' roll like some other artists, such as Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason.
42.
In 1954 Louis Prima was offered a stay at The Sahara in Las Vegas to open his new act with Keely Smith.
43.
Louis Prima enlisted New Orleans saxophonist Sam Butera and his backing musicians, "The Witnesses".
44.
Louis Prima decided to relocate his acts to the Desert Inn because he would take in $3 million for producing twelve weeks' worth of acts a year for five years.
45.
Louis Prima signed with Dot Records in 1959 and produced eight albums, headlined by Wonderland By Night and On Stage in 1961.
46.
In January 1961, Prima was invited by Frank Sinatra to perform at the inaugural gala for President John F Kennedy; the two played "Old Black Magic" together.
47.
The constant performances and Louis Prima's infidelities were too much for Smith.
48.
Louis Prima's father died in 1961, the same year as the divorce from Smith.
49.
Louis Prima filled Smith's spot with Gia Maione, a waitress who was 21 years old.
50.
Louis Prima was in the middle of making appearances in Las Vegas and promoting the film Twist All Night.
51.
In 1967, Louis Prima landed a role in Walt Disney's animated feature The Jungle Book, as the raucous orangutan King Louie.
52.
Louis Prima performed the hit song "I Wan'na Be like You" on the soundtrack, leading to the recording of two albums with Phil Harris: The Jungle Book and More Jungle Book, and covering MC duties and singing the theme song "Winnie the Pooh", for the 1967 album entitled Happy Birthday Winnie the Pooh, all of these on Disneyland Records.
53.
Louis Prima can be heard on the soundtrack of another cartoon feature, The Man Called Flintstone.
54.
Louis Prima suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and went into a coma following surgery.
55.
Louis Prima never recovered, and died three years later, in 1978, having been moved back to New Orleans.
56.
Louis Prima was buried in Metairie Cemetery in a gray marble crypt topped by a figure of Gabriel, the trumpeter-angel, sculpted in 1997 by Russian-born sculptor Alexei Kazantsev.
57.
Louis Prima's expected visit to a small Italian restaurant drives the plot of the critically acclaimed 1996 film Big Night.
58.
Louis Prima's New Orleans-based daughter, Lena Louis Prima, performs throughout the nation.