Jazz singer Anita O’Day was an incomparable stylist, an incorrigible brat and a vocalist as pioneering, skilled and influential as her most vaunted contemporaries (Ella, Lady Day, Sarah Vaughn). Tagged “the Jezebel of Jazz” and “the Hip Chick” (she actually trademarked the latter), Anita was a genius, a nonstop artist who began singing in her teens and never quit. She burned down houses with Gene Krupa (scoring a couple of million-sellers with him circa 1939), thundered with Woody Herman, spread joy with Stan Kenton. Perpetually restless, she quit every one of them, finally landing in postwar Los Angeles and establishing herself as a singer of depth and dynamism with an illimitable capacity for improvisation that frequently placed her at the top of Downbeat’s jazz polls.
By the mid-’50s, O’Day launched a stunning series of Verve albums that presented her in a variety of settings, using everyone from Oscar Peterson’s trio to Billy May’s rampaging big band; each was a masterpiece, showcasing her untrammeled scat singing and wily, adventurous delivery. O’Day’s style relied on a cool, almost detached mood, an emphasis on melodic, hornlike phrasing and an open throat designed not to sustain intonation but to propel the vocal tone itself forward, a big push that rolled from broad, chesty depths to pristine, crystalline highs. This allowed her phrasing to assume highly evocative shading and coloration, weaving around and above both melody and meter. In performance, she was nothing less than mesmerizing.
To say she’d lived hard would be a calamitous understatement. Years of heroin addiction, over 30 abortions, multiple arrests, two DOA marriages, a near fatal 1966 overdose and prison time all illuminated her formidable resume. She epitomized the jazz life, never stopped singing and, after her career cooled in the 70s, a 60 Minutes segment juiced it back up, big time. Between sets at an NYC club, CBS’ Harry Reasoner had asked for an interview—Anita replied “60 Minutes? Is that a local show?”
I got to know her in 1991, thanks to her manager Alan Eichler, then also serving as the Hotel Roosevelt’s Entertainment Director, where he presented a dazzling roster of veteran artists at the famed Cinegrill showroom, with memorable engagements by LaVern Baker, Charles Brown, Kay Starr, Ruth Brown and Hadda Brooks; Little Jimmy Scott’s 1991 West Coast comeback show there, f’rinstance, was a particularly electrifying experience.
He booked O’Day all over the world and, in town, she was a mainstay at jazz hotspot the Vine Street Bar & Grill, which is where we first met when I was doing liner notes for her At Vine St. Live album. The then-72-year-old O’Day’s skills were as addictive as the junk she’d shot for years (having successfully kicked decades before), and while she kept me at arm’s length for a long spell, we eventually became friends. After an extensive 1995 LA Weekly feature I did on her resulted in Madonna optioning the film rights for Anita’s mind-bending autobiography High Times Hard Times, we started hanging out together.
At the time she had a “modest” second story apartment at Franklin and Argyle, and I’d drop by to do a little day drinking at nearby cocktail lounge Birds. One afternoon, I ordered a margarita and Anita approvingly cooed “Oh, that’s what I had for lunch!” Driving the four or five blocks back home in her 70’s-era Cadillac Coupe de Ville, she’d routinely run red lights.
When Eichler booked long MIA singer Margaret Whiting into the Cinegrill, it was decided that I’d escort Anita to the opening night.
Margaret, daughter of songwriter Richard Whiting (“Hooray for Hollywood,” “Ain’t We Got Fun,” “On the Good Ship Lollipop”), had made history in 1949 as the first pop singer to appear on the Grand Ole Opry after her duet with Singing Cowboy Jimmy Wakely on “Slippin’ Around,” went to #1, the same year her classic duet with Johnny Mercer on his “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” also topped the charts. Whiting had recently married retired gay porn star Jack Wrangler (22 years her junior) and was a longtime resident of New York City, so her return to Hollywood was a very big deal among the old school Tinseltown set.
It was Tuesday, May 29, 1996 and I rode a bus into Hollywood, as free drinks flowed at the Cinegrill. Arriving a bit early for our appointed 7 p.m. rendezvous, I stopped into Jack’s Sugar Shack at Hollywood and Vine for a pre-date night beer. There I encountered a feisty little middle-aged dude with bushy moustache and a massive chip on his shoulder. He immediately told me he was the son of famed choreographer Jack Cole (think “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes). We chatted, he was a fan of Anita and he dropped some more names until I mentioned Eichler. “I can’t stand that gahdam sonofabitch,” he said, launching into a gale force tirade that, I should’ve realized, set the tone for the entire evening.
I headed up the hill, where Anita, clad in one of her signature pastel pant suits, was sipping a glass of cough syrup and watching TV. We taxied over to the Cinegrill. It was filling up fast, but we got a ringside table and all eyes were on Anita. We drank vodka martinis as a succession of storied old dolls approached, all fawning upon her in reverential tones. Two of big band-era sensations the King Sisters (they turned down Glenn Miller!), Alyce and Marilyn, were first, followed by vocalist-actor Monica Lewis (who worked on post-war radio with Sinatra and was longtime voice of Miss Chiquita Banana), then Gogi “Wayward Wind” Grant, the great Kay Starr—it was dizzying, almost like a receiving line.
At one point, turban-topped Sun Goddess Yma Sumac, renown for her 5-octave vocal range, joined us. Decked out in an elaborate lowcut gown featuring an intricate, jeweled, multi-layered necklace that camouflaged her slightly desiccated Incan decolletage, the exotica empress immediately began discussing bowel movements. “Never, Anita,” she urged, “use the harsh chemical laxatives. We should be going, 2,3,4 times a day—like a little child.” Shades of Xtabay! O’Day shot me a caustic sideways look and my mind curdled so badly that I can’t recall her reply. Thankfully, Eichler appeared and ushered Sumac away to another table.
More martinis, more pointed fingers and whispered accolades. It was near capacity, mostly singers and actors, when the lights dimmed and the familiar “Welcome to the Cinegrill, ladies and gentlemen, if you’d like to smoke during the performance please do so back at the bar” announcement.
Whiting opened the show with her father’s “Hooray for Hollywood.” She looked good, pipes were in fair condition, and she received enthusiastic applause. Not from Anita, who loudly proclaimed, as Whiting launched into a quiet ballad, “The old broad wouldn’t be so bad if she could just sing on key.”
Heads swiveled our way. No one could believe what they’d just heard. Her words hung in the air like a noxious gas. I was stunned, but Anita kept it up, snorting derisively, rolling her eyes and, worst of all, giving out with tart wisecracks and peals of sarcastic laughter.
She was a one woman wrecking crew, loving every savage minute of it. Finally, I whispered, “Hey Anita, what do you say we fall back to the bar and have a smoke?” She fixed me with a dagger glare and unhesitatingly snarled “You really are a silly son of a bitch, aren’t you?”
That was enough. I slipped out, perched at the lobby bar. It was unbelievable, sadistic. The amount of psychic damage she had inflicted in just fifteen or twenty minutes was staggering. After cooling off, I slunk back inside, where Eichler had managed to get her away from the table and seated in the rear of the room. The tension was severe.
Was it the cough syrup? Who knew? She looked flustered and kept muttering “I have to get out of here . . .” Best part of the night was telling Eichler “I’ll get a cab, get her home.”
He told Anita, who asked “Is he gonna rape me?” She jumped up to split, stumbled and fell on the guy next to her—jazz critic Don Heckman, on assignment for the LA Times. It was the perfect cherry on top of this confection of disaster. I hustled her out as Eichler apologized.
We rode back in silence, I paid the driver and asked for her house keys. Just as I turned the lock, I realized she was keeling over. I could see the headlines “Jazz Legend Dies After Fall.” It was a slow-motion panic but I caught her, got into the building and up the stairs.
Back at the Cinegrill, from which, amazingly, she was never officially 86’d, Eichler recalled “Margaret Whiting never mentioned it. But Gogi Grant said, ‘Don't ever invite her to one of my openings!’”
My date with Anita. Hooray for Hollywood.
Mercy sakes alive, she did live on the wild side of the wild side! Back in 1957-58, when I worked at the local music store (my only paid job in the music industry) Anita O'day and June Christy were popular sellers on the LP side. Considering that she lived to be 87, one might think of her as a female Keith Richards.
Jonny, I'm glad to have found you here. You're writing is so colorful and informative. Plus, reading about Anita O'Day, I now feel as pure and innocent as a baby fawn.