Monica Lewis

Monica Lewis, born May Lewis on May 5, 1922, in Chicago, Illinois, was an American jazz singer, film actress, and Broadway performer who died on June 12, 2015, at her home in Woodland Hills, California. She was the youngest of three children born to Leon Lewis, a pianist, CBS musical director, and composer, and Jessica Lewis, a singer with the Chicago Opera Company who gave her daughter voice lessons. When Lewis was eleven, the family relocated to New York City during the Great Depression.

Her professional career began in radio after she auditioned successfully for WMCA in New York City and earned her own program. At seventeen, while enrolled at Hunter College, she took a singing job on a radio program called Gloom Dodgers to help support her family. She subsequently hosted her own radio show, Monica Makes Music, and later co-starred on The Chesterfield Supper Club. It was during this period that she changed her given name from May to Monica, telling The New York Times that she felt and looked more like a Monica.

Lewis made her Broadway debut in 1942, winning the role of a singing cigarette girl in Johnny 2X4. That stage work led to engagements at the Stork Club and ultimately to her departure from college. In 1943, jazz pianist Leonard Feather informed her that bandleader Benny Goodman was seeking a replacement singer after Peggy Lee left the band upon marrying guitarist Dave Barbour. Lewis won the position at a Times Square audition that drew hundreds of competitors and went on to perform with Goodman's orchestra on the roof of the Hotel Astor. Through Goodman's connections, she appeared on nationally broadcast programs including The Revere Camera Show and Beat the Band, earning the title "America's Singing Sweetheart." She recorded for Signature Records, MGM Records, Decca Records, Capitol Records, and Verve Records, with recordings that included "Put the Blame on Mame," "I Wish You Love," and "Autumn Leaves."

From 1947 to 1961, Lewis served as the singing voice of Miss Chiquita Banana, the animated spokesmascot for Chiquita bananas. In a 2013 interview, she noted that the role provided her with financial security for many years. She also appeared in advertisements for Burlington Mills and Camel cigarettes. In 1948, she was among the performers on the inaugural broadcast of The Ed Sullivan Show, then called Toast of the Town, which also featured Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, and the comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. The program was created and produced by her brother, Marlo Lewis.

MGM signed Lewis to a contract in 1950, and her film credits included The Strip, Everything I Have Is Yours, Affair with a Stranger, and The D.I. She later appeared in several disaster films of the 1970s, among them Earthquake (1974), Rollercoaster (1977), Airport '77 (1977), and The Concorde ... Airport '79 (1979). From the 1950s through the 1980s, she made television appearances on series including Those Whiting Girls, Peter Gunn, Johnny Staccato, Wagon Train, The Virginian, Tales of Wells Fargo, and Ironside. She returned to live performance in the 1980s and 1990s, singing at venues such as the Vine St. Bar and Grill, The Hollywood Roosevelt Cinegrill in Los Angeles, and Danny's Skylight Room in New York City.

Lewis was married twice. Her first marriage, in 1945, was to American record producer Bob Thiele, with whom she co-founded Signature Records; the marriage ended in divorce a few years later. She relocated to Beverly Hills in the 1950s and in 1956 married film producer Jennings Lang, with whom she remained until his death in 1996. Together they had children including screenwriter and producer-director Rocky Lang; her husband also brought jazz pianist and Hollywood session musician Mike Lang from a prior marriage. Her sister Barbara was a pianist, and her brother Marlo served as co-producer of The Ed Sullivan Show. In her 2011 memoir, Hollywood Through My Eyes: The Lives and Loves of a Golden Age Siren, Lewis disclosed that actor and future U.S. President Ronald Reagan had proposed marriage to her. She spoke about her career to The New Yorker ten days before her death; the resulting article appeared in the magazine's September 7, 2015 edition. Lewis died of natural causes at the age of 93.