Monica Lewis (born May Lewis; May 5, 1922 – June 12, 2015) was an American jazz singer and film actress. Lewis was the longtime voice of Chiquita Banana in that company's animated ad campaign, beginning in 1947.[2][3]
Biography
Early life
Lewis was born in Chicago on May 5, 1922, the youngest of three children.[4] Her father, Leon, was a pianist, musical director for CBS,[5] and composer while her mother, Jessica, was a singer with the Chicago Opera Company, with Lewis studying voice with her mother.[1][4] When Lewis was 11, she and her family moved to New York City due to The Great Depression.[1]
Career
Lewis began singing on radio after a successful audition with WMCA in New York City led to her own program.[5] While studying at Hunter College at age 17 she started working as a singer for a radio show titled Gloom Dodgers in order to support her family.[1][6] Shortly after working for Gloom Dodgers, Lewis had a radio show titled Monica Makes Music. She went on to co-star on The Chesterfield Supper Club on radio.[5]
She won a part as a singing cigarette girl in the Broadway show Johnny 2X4.[1] Lewis' work on Broadway led to performing at the Stork Club and leaving school; she changed her name from May to Monica because she thought it was "sexier", telling The New York Times that "I feel much more like Monica and I look much more like Monica, too".[1]
She resumed her singing career in the 1980's and 1990s, performing at popular clubs such as the Vine St. Bar and Grill and The Hollywood Roosevelt Cinegrill in Los Angeles and Danny's Skylight Room in New York City.[9]
She spoke about her career 10 days before her death to The New Yorker in an article published in the September 7, 2015 edition [10]
Personal life
Lewis was married twice. Her first husband was the American record producer Bob Thiele, with whom she started Signature Records. They married in 1945 but divorced a couple of years later. She moved to Beverly Hills, California in the 1950s.[4] In 1956, she married film producer Jennings Lang, and they remained together until his death in 1996. They had three children, including screenwriter/producer-director Rocky Lang[11] and, by her husband's first marriage, jazz pianist/Hollywood session musician Mike Lang.[12] Her sister Barbara was a pianist and her brother Marlo was co-producer of The Ed Sullivan Show.[11]
In her 2011 memoir Hollywood Through My Eyes, Lewis revealed that actor (and future U.S. President) Ronald Reagan had proposed to her.[1][2]
Lewis died of natural causes at the age of 93 on June 12, 2015 at her home in Woodland Hills, California.[3]
^ abcDonald, Jane (July 27, 1957). "Career Carved By Versatility". Tucson Daily Citizen. Arizona, Tucson. p. 21. Retrieved June 26, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.
^ abRoberts, Sam (June 16, 2015). "Monica Lewis, Whose Apple-Pie Appeal Sold Chiquita's Bananas, Is Dead at 93: [Obituary (Obit); Biography]". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. p. B4. ProQuest1690710877. Ms. Lewis was born in Chicago to a musical family headed by her father, Leon Lewis, who was a symphonic composer and conductor. Her mother, Jessica, sang with the Chicago Opera Company and her sister, Barbara, was an accomplished classical pianist. Her brother, Marlo, became head of variety for CBS-TV and created Ed Sullivan's "Toast of the Town" show. [...] In 1956, she met and married widowed MCA/Universal production executive Jennings Lang, putting her own career on hold in order to become mother to his two young sons, Robert and Michael, whom she adopted. They were soon joined by a third son, Rocky, now a successful screenwriter, producer-director and author. [...] Following her husband's death in 1996, she recorded a tribute album tracing their 40-year marriage, titled 'Why Did I Choose You?'
^Burlingame, Jon (August 5, 2022). "Mike Lang, Leading Jazz and Studio Pianist, Dies at 80". Variety. ProQuest2699190225. Mike Lang, one of the preeminent pianists in Hollywood history, died of lung cancer Friday morning at his home in Studio City. He was 80. Lang played piano (or organ, harpsichord or celeste) on an estimated 2,000 film and TV scores dating back to the mid-1960s, including scores by virtually every great film composer of the past 50 years...He was born Michael Herbert Lang on Dec. 10, 1941, in Los Angeles (but changed his name, many years later, to Michael Anthony Lang), the son of Jennings Lang, an agent who later became a producer of such Universal films as 'Earthquake' and 'Airport 1975.'
