Free That Old Black Magic: Louis Prima, Keely Smith, and the Golden Age of Las Vegas by Tom Clavin Page B

home, the kitchen and dining room and living room were all opened up to the musicians,” Madeline Prima remembered. “We didn’t get to eat up there until Louis was gone.”
    “It was a day for red gravy,” said Joe Segreto. “The meal would open with meatballs with the gravy, and we would have the pasta, and copious wonderful meals, and the family all around you and the friends of the family made it an exciting day.”
    Vincent remembered a conversation with Mrs. Prima: “She’s doing the dishes, and I’m talking some Italian, and we’re grooving, and Louis is in the living room reading, and he’s listening to us. ‘Where do you think Louis got that talent?’ Angelina says. ‘From me. From me, Jimmy.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I used to be the singer in church.’ ‘You did? What did you do?’ ‘I was the singer.’ ‘How do you sing?’ And she starts in. I’m slapping out a beat and Louis is hysterical.”
    In the audience at one of Prima’s shows in Washington, D.C., in early 1944 was First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. She apparently could not resist the bandleader’s charms either, and she invited him to the White House.
    A number of celebrities, including actresses Joan Fontaine and Mary Pickford, had been invited for a gathering to celebrate President Franklin Roosevelt’s sixty-second birthday. Prima joined them. The grandson of Sicilian immigrants from Little Palermo in New Orleans stood in the East Room of the White House with various government officials and then was introduced to the president. The hyped-up Prima blurted, “Hello, Daddy!” Fortunately, Roosevelt thought this was hilarious. When a group portrait was taken, Prima stood next to Mrs. Roosevelt, and thus his fame was further boosted when the photo was published in newspapers across the country.
    By the end of World War II, at age thirty-four Louis Prima was in the top tier of successful American entertainers. At a show in New York City in 1945, he shared the stage with Frank Sinatra. The predominantly female audience swooned and cheered more for Prima whenever he sang or blew the trumpet.
    The problem, as he found out, was that from here there was nowhere to go but down.

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    After the war, the musical tastes of audiences in the United States began to change. As a result, big bands faded in popularity. For bandleaders like Prima, as concert revenues dwindled, it became more difficult to bankroll the larger groups of musicians. Some bands went out of business altogether, while others struggled on or downsized, becoming quintets or even quartets.
    Prima pushed ahead with the latest incarnation of the Gleeby Rhythm Orchestra. He continued to record—he signed a new contract with RCA Victor Records—and he remained popular. A six-week engagement in 1945 at the Strand Theatre in New York grossed $440,000, and in 1946
Metronome
magazine recognized him as Showman of the Year. But his spending continued at a high level, not just to underwrite his band but also to buy and maintain racehorses. Having two ex-wives didn’t help either.
    Louis was not a faithful husband while on the road, and his traveling so much put a strain on his marriage to Alma. Finally, in 1947, she sued him for divorce. It was granted, along with alimony of 7.5 percent of his annual income. (Eleven years later, the terms were changed to a forty-five-thousand-dollar payment and $250 a week.) He began dating Tracelene Barrett, who had once been his secretary and was all of twenty-one.
    In June 1948, the two were married in New York City. Angelina and Anthony Prima attended, with the former singing during the reception. The couple launched their honeymoon by getting on a boat that Louis had bought for his bride and named the
Tracelene II.
In what could be seen as symbolic, the boat hit a sandbar in the middle of the Hudson River, and the newlyweds had to be rescued.
    Prima spent less time on the road, apparently, to please his new wife and