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Frankie Laine, a singer, composer, and author, was born Francesco Paulo LoVecchio on March 30, 1913, in Chicago. He grew up in Chicago's Little Italy as the eldest of eight children to Sicilian immigrants John and Anna Lo Vecchio, who hailed from Monreale, Sicily near Palermo. His father initially worked as a water-boy for the Chicago Railroad before advancing to laying rails, later attending Trade School to become a barber, counting gangster Al Capone among his notable clients. Frankie first sang in the choir at Immaculate Conception Church, where he also served as an altar boy. At 15, while attending Lane Technical School, he performed at Chicago's Merry Garden Ballroom. To support himself, he worked as a car salesman, a beer parlor bouncer, and a machinist, and also sang weekly on radio station WINS for $5 a week. After auditioning there, the program director encouraged him to adopt the name Frankie Laine to avoid confusion with opera singer Frances Lane and singer Fanny Rose broadcasting nearby.
At 18, Laine entered a marathon dance contest in Baltimore, following wins in Stamford, CT, and Chicago. In 1932, he set a record by dancing 3,501 hours over 145 consecutive days at Wilson's Pier in Atlantic City, New Jersey, competing against Olympic miler Joey Ray and 101 other contestants. Throughout his marathon dancing career, he entered 14 contests, securing three first-place finishes, one second, and two fifths. His final contest was at Chicago's Arcadia, where a 14-year-old contestant was disqualified for her age; she later became the successful singer Anita O'Day.
Laine moved to Los Angeles, working in a defense plant. He once rescued Ronnie Como, son of singer Perry Como, from drowning in a local pool. Coincidentally, Laine replaced Perry Como in the Frankie Carlone band. While performing at the Billy Berg Club on Hollywood and Vine, he was discovered by Hoagy Carmichael, who heard him sing "Old Rocking Chair." The club's house trio was led by Nat 'King' Cole. Laine introduced "That's My Desire" at the Vine Street Club in Hollywood. A first-class jazz vocalist, by 1952 he was a top recording artist with his own show at the London Palladium and performed for Queen Elizabeth II. In 1950, he married actress Nan Grey and helped raise her two children from a prior marriage. Joining ASCAP in 1952, his main musical collaborator was Carl Fischer. Laine toured Britain in 1988, still performing energetically despite having undergone quadruple bypass heart surgery. In the 1980s, moved by seeing children in winter without shoes, he campaigned on radio stations nationwide to raise funds for Christmas shoe donations, collecting thousands of dollars for needy families.
Some of Laine's greatest hits include "That's My Desire" (1947), "Mule Train" (1949), "Jezebel" and "Cry of the Wild Goose" (1950), "On the Sunny Side of the Street" (1951), "I Believe" (1953), and "Moonlight Gambler" (1957). He sang the theme song for the TV series Rawhide (1959), starring Clint Eastwood, and co-wrote "We'll Be Together Again." Following the recent passing of his wife, he now resides in San Diego, California.
