KVSP Steve Lawrence, Emmy and Grammy Award winner, dead at 88
Written by ABC Audio ALL RIGHTS RESERVED on March 7, 2024
Steve Lawrence, the entertainer who spent decades as one half of the iconic singing duo Steve & Eydie with wife Eydie Gorme, has died at 88 years old.
A rep for the Emmy and Grammy winner tells ABC News Lawrence died on Thursday from complications due to Alzheimer’s disease.
Born Sidney Liebowitz, the Brooklyn, New York, native began his entertainment career at just 16 years old after winning a talent competition.
He met his wife and singing partner-to-be when they both appeared on Steve Allen‘s Tonight Show; the pair were married in Las Vegas in 1957.
They gigged regularly in Vegas throughout the ’60s, also playing New York, Chicago and Miami, and were mainstays on TV during the variety show heyday, appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show and others.
Lawrence and Gorme also appeared on Broadway in productions like Golden Rainbow, and Lawrence was nominated for a Tony for his solo turn in 1954’s What Makes Sammy Run?
He also had 33 songs on the Billboard chart between 1952 and 1966, with five reaching the top 10.
The performer was also a regular guest on The Carol Burnett Show in the ’70s; in the ’80s, he and his fellow New Yorker Gorme played a series of sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall.
Lawrence appeared on dozens of TV shows over the years, from Two and a Half Men to C.S.I., and he made one appearance as Morty Fine, the mysterious dad of Fran Drescher‘s character in The Nanny.
On the big screen, he logged appearances in films including 1980’s The Blues Brothers opposite John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, and its sequel in 2000 with Aykroyd and John Goodman.
Gorme passed away in 2013, and the eldest of their sons, Michael, died in 1986.
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