Steve Lawrence

Steve Lawrence sustained a singing career exceeding fifty years both independently and paired with his spouse Eydie Gorme. His recordings registered on the best-seller charts for more than twenty-five years, providing the foundation for headlining status in nightclubs and concert halls. Emerging in the post-swing, pre-rock & roll climate of the early 1950s, he upheld traditional pop and thereby resisted prevailing musical currents across much of his professional span. In later decades he earned recognition as the handpicked successor to Frank Sinatra in carrying forward that tradition. He simultaneously pursued songwriting, film acting, Broadway leads, and the production of Emmy-winning television specials while hosting several series of his own.

Born Sidney Liebowitz on July 8, 1935, in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood, Lawrence grew up with a father, Max Liebowitz, who worked as a house painter yet served as a cantor. The boy first displayed vocal ability at synagogue. After his voice changed at puberty he paused singing for several years, during which he studied music and acquired proficiency on piano and saxophone while also beginning to compose and arrange material. He resumed singing in high school, took lessons, and traveled into Manhattan to visit song publishers in the Brill Building, soon securing work on demonstration records. Adopting the first names of two nephews, he became Steve Lawrence and auditioned successfully for Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts in 1951, claiming the top prize at age sixteen. Dewey Bergman of King Records, after hearing one of those demos, signed him to a contract in April 1952. Over the next two years King issued eight singles; the second, a revival of the 1944 hit “Poinciana,” entered the charts in June 1952. The label also released Lawrence’s debut album, Steve Lawrence, in 1953. That July he joined the local television talk show Tonight! hosted by Steve Allen. He remained a regular when the program expanded to national broadcast five nights weekly on NBC beginning September 27, 1954, in the 11:30 p.m.–1 a.m. slot. By then he had left King for Coral Records, a Decca subsidiary, and had started collaborating with fellow Tonight! vocalist Eydie Gorme. Their first joint Coral single, issued in 1954, paired Bob Merrill’s “Make Yourself Comfortable” with Moose Charlap and Carolyn Leigh’s “I’ve Gotta Crow” from Peter Pan.

Lawrence stayed with Tonight! through 1955 and 1956 while issuing solo discs and further duets. Coral brought out his second LP, About That Girl, in 1955 and his third, Songs by Steve Lawrence, in 1956. Chart success arrived only after he covered “The Banana Boat Song” late in 1956 in the wake of Harry Belafonte’s hit; Belafonte’s version reached the Top Five in early 1957 while Lawrence’s placed in the Top 20. He quickly repeated the tactic with Buddy Knox’s “Party Doll,” which topped the charts in March 1957; Lawrence’s rendition climbed to the Top Five. These entries secured disc-jockey attention, and although further hits proved elusive he added two more chart singles that year. He also expanded his television work, appearing on the General Motors Fiftieth Anniversary Show on November 17, 1957, later issued as an RCA Victor LP.

After Steve Allen departed Tonight! in January 1957 to focus on his prime-time series, Lawrence and Gorme moved on as well. They wed on December 29, 1957, in Las Vegas. Lawrence continued charting modestly, and his fourth album, Here’s Steve Lawrence, entered the Top 20 in June 1958. The couple hosted the summer replacement for Allen’s program; for eight weeks in July and August, Steve Allen Presents the Steve Lawrence-Eydie Gorme Show aired Sunday nights on NBC.

Drafted in fall 1958 at age twenty-three, Lawrence served two years at Fort Myer, Virginia, as vocalist with the Army Band-Orchestra. The military permitted continued recording. After a final Coral single and his fifth LP, All About Love, he joined ABC-Paramount early in 1959. His third single there, “Pretty Blue Eyes,” reached the Top Ten by year’s end, and its successor, “Footsteps” (co-written by Barry Mann and Hank Hunter), became his third Top Ten entry in April 1960. ABC-Paramount released his sixth album, Swing Softly with Me.

Once discharged, Lawrence rejoined Gorme; together they launched their duo club career and recorded their first full-length duet album, We Got Us, for ABC-Paramount. The title track earned the 1960 Grammy for Best Performance by a Vocal Group. The label also issued Eydie Gorme and Steve Lawrence Sing the Golden Hits, a non-compilation collection of earlier hits by other artists. Their ABC-Paramount tenure ended, and they signed with United Artists before year’s close. (Frequent label changes—from King to Coral to ABC-Paramount to United Artists and beyond—later produced numerous overlapping compilation albums.)

United Artists released two Lawrence LPs in 1960, The Steve Lawrence Sound and Lawrence Goes Latin, plus two singles. His third UA 45, “Portrait of My Love,” rose to the Top Ten in May 1961 and brought a Grammy nomination for Best Solo Vocal Performance, Male. The corresponding album reached the charts in August. Its follow-up, “My Claire de Lune,” missed the Hot 100 yet became Lawrence’s first of thirty Easy Listening chart entries, peaking at number 13.

In 1962 Lawrence signed with Columbia Records, his fifth label in ten years. Early singles underperformed, but the third, Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s “Go Away Little Girl,” hit number one in January 1963 and earned gold certification. That success inaugurated his strongest recording year. Winners! charted the following month, reaching number 27 on Billboard and the Top Ten on Cash Box. “Don’t Be Afraid, Little Darlin’” (by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil) and the next single, Goffin and King’s “Poor Little Rich Girl,” both reached the Top 40. Steve and Eydie placed “I Want to Stay Here” in the Top 40, while Lawrence’s “Walking Proud” and the duo’s “I Can’t Stop Talking About You” also charted, the latter peaking in the Top 40 on February 8, 1964, the day before the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.

The British Invasion soon reduced chart opportunities for artists like Lawrence, yet he had already shifted focus. He was rehearsing for his Broadway debut in What Makes Sammy Run?, adapted from Budd Schulberg’s novel with songs by Ervin Drake. The production opened February 27, 1964, to strong reviews; the cast album reached number 28, Lawrence received the Drama Critics Circle Award, and he earned a Tony nomination. While performing eight shows weekly he maintained recording activity. His Billy May-arranged Academy Award Losers LP had charted briefly before the opening. Although Top 40 entries ceased, “Everybody Knows” and “Yet… I Know (Et Pourtant)” appeared on the Hot 100, and an Everybody Knows album charted. A Steve & Eydie Christmas collection, That Holiday Feeling, and a television acting role in Carol for Another Christmas followed in December.

In May 1965 Schulberg and the producers publicly faulted Lawrence for missing twenty-one performances since Christmas. He replied that illness had caused the absences, some taken without pay. The show closed June 12, 1965, after 540 performances. Lawrence promptly signed with CBS-TV for his own variety series; The Steve Lawrence Show premiered September 13, 1965, at ten o’clock and ran until December, accompanied by a charting album of the same name.

Lawrence and Gorme continued recording for Columbia with declining sales while maintaining live and television work through 1966 and 1967. Late in 1967 they began preparing Golden Rainbow, a Broadway musical based on Arnold Schulman’s A Hole in the Head (previously filmed with Frank Sinatra). Walter Marks supplied the score, including “I’ve Gotta Be Me,” which Lawrence recorded; the single reached the Easy Listening Top Ten in December. (It missed the Hot 100; Sammy Davis, Jr. later scored a Top 20 pop hit with it.) By then the couple recorded for CBS’s new Calendar imprint as well as Columbia.

Golden Rainbow opened February 4, 1968, and ran 385 performances until January 12, 1969. The cast album appeared on Calendar; Lawrence and Gorme also issued singles there in 1968 before moving to RCA Victor by year’s end. RCA released two final charting LPs in 1969: the Gordon Jenkins concept album What It Was, Was Love and Real True Lovin’. Additional RCA singles and albums continued through 1971, after which the couple joined MGM Records. Further modest LPs and singles appeared through 1973, among them their last Hot 100 entry, “We Can Make It Together,” recorded with the Osmonds in September 1972. Subsequent singles surfaced on 20th Century, United Artists, and Warner Bros. through the decade’s close. In 1979, under the pseudonym Parker & Penny, they reached the Adult Contemporary chart with “Hallelujah.”

Although recording success waned, Lawrence and Gorme remained nightclub headliners and television regulars. Their 1975 Gershwin tribute, Our Love Is Here to Stay, aired at Thanksgiving and yielded a two-LP soundtrack. Steve and Eydie Celebrate Irving Berlin, broadcast August 22, 1978, captured multiple Emmys, including Outstanding Comedy-Variety or Music Program for Lawrence as co-executive producer and co-star. In 1981 he issued his first solo album in eight years, Take It on Home, on the small Applause label. Throughout the 1980s he expanded into film (The Blues Brothers, 1980; The Lonely Guy, 1984) and television, notably co-hosting Foul-Ups, Bleeps & Blunders with Don Rickles in 1984. In 1989 he founded GL Music and released the Steve & Eydie album Alone Together, later reissuing earlier catalog on CD.

Lawrence and Gorme opened for Frank Sinatra on the 1990–1991 Diamond Jubilee tour marking the singer’s seventy-fifth birthday. Sinatra later entrusted Lawrence with his book of arrangements. Lawrence used those charts for Steve Lawrence Sings Sinatra: A Musical Tribute to the Man and His Music, produced by the couple’s son, composer David Lawrence, and issued by GL Music in January 2003. (Their younger son, Michael, had died in 1986 at age twenty-three.) Based in Las Vegas and reducing engagements, they scheduled 2003 performances to promote the album; the One More for the Road tour extended into 2004. In 2005 Varèse Sarabande assembled three previously unreleased early tracks with later hits for the collection All My Love Belongs to You. Eydie Gorme died in Las Vegas in August 2013 at age eighty-four. Steve Lawrence died on March 7, 2024, at age eighty-eight.