Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme (right) and Carol Burnett during a tribute special to Irving Berlin on “The Carol Burnett Show,” August 1978. (Wikimedia Commons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In countless night club and TV appearances, \u201cSteve and Eydie\u201d offered smooth versions of American standards well into the rock and roll era \u2014 while modeling a happy marriage that proved a balm in an increasingly spiky cultural landscape. Their comfortably romantic banter helped sell classic duets like \u201cSide by Side,\u201d \u201cWe Got Us,\u201d \u201cThis Could Be the Start of Something\u201d and \u201cWe Can Make it Together.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Lawrence had a solo career that included the hits \u201cGo Away Little Girl,\u201d which sold over one million copies, \u201cPretty Blue Eyes,\u201d \u201cFootsteps,\u201d \u201cPortrait of My Love\u201d and \u201cParty Doll.\u201d He was also an actor, appearing in guest roles on television shows in every decade since the 1950s, including turns as Morty Fine, father of Fran Drescher\u2019s title character in episodes of \u201cThe Nanny.\u201d <\/p>\n
In 1964, Lawrence was nominated for a Tony for his starring role in \u201cWhat Makes Sammy Run?,\u201d playing a ruthless Jewish Hollywood mogul in a Broadway musical based on Budd Schulberg\u2019s classic novel. <\/p>\n
In addition to their popular lounge act, Lawrence and Gorm\u00e9 appeared together in the Broadway musical \u201cGolden Rainbow,\u201d which ran from February 1968 to January 1969 and featured the Walter Marks song, \u201cI\u2019ve Gotta Be Me.\u201d Although Lawrence\u2019s version hit #6 on Billboard magazine\u2019s Easy Listening chart, it was Sammy Davis, Jr.\u2019s version that became a Top 25 hit on Billboard\u2019s Hot 100 pop singles chart in 1969. <\/p>\n
Lawrence had shared the song with Davis, a Black convert to Judaism. \u201cI sent him my record live and I said, \u2018You\u2019re going to do this your own way and better, because it\u2019s much more lyrically correct coming from you than it is for me,\u201d Lawrence told PBS in 2015. <\/p>\n
Lawrence, born Sidney Liebowitz in Brooklyn, was the son of Max, a cantor and house painter, and Helen. He started singing in the synagogue choir. After dropping out of Thomas Jefferson High School, he won a spot on Arthur Godfrey\u2019s morning radio show and recorded what became a string of solo hits in his smooth baritone.<\/p>\n
He met Eydie (born Edith Gormezano, the daughter of Sephardic Jewish parents Nessim Hasdai Gormezano and Fortuna Gormezano, in the Bronx) when both were regular singers on \u201cThe Steve Allen Show\u201d (later retitled \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d). They married in 1957. The pair won a Grammy Award in 1960 for their first complete duet album, \u201cWe Got Us.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2010, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency nominated their version of the duet, \u201cBaby It\u2019s Cold Outside\u201d as one of the best Jewish Christmas songs. Written by the Jewish composer and lyricist Frank Loesser, the song is about a man trying to convince a woman to stay in his apartment on a wintry night. While the sexual politics of the song have been criticized in recent years, Ron Kampeas writes of Steve and Eydie that \u201cNo other couple sings as closely together, or as knowingly.\u201d<\/p>\n
As tastes changed in the 1960s and \u201970s, the pair continued performing before audiences of their generation. \u201cEydie and I have been fortunate in that the audiences where we have performed or done concerts all over the world, the audiences have been supportive, they really showed up,\u201d he told an interviewer in 1995. \u201cI can\u2019t translate that into the record business. The Top 40 has driven myself and all of my colleagues to a different kind of niche.\u201d <\/p>\n
The couple sang together well into the early 2000s, before Eydie retired in 2009. She died in 2013.<\/p>\n
Lawrence is survived by a son, David, a composer of movie soundtracks, and a granddaughter. Another son, Michael, predeceased him.<\/p>\n
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