Steve And Eydie

I loved Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, as a team, as a vocal couple and as a family. We went downtown once to see them in concert and it was a lovely evening filled with excellent voices and singing and lots of fun and smiles due to their banter. We were so happy to be their for the concert and we smiled all the way home.

I owned a lot of their recordings, most of them on those old big huge plastic records that are not in use anymore. I enjoyed hearing their talk about marriage and kids during the concert. Sadly, later on they lost one of their two sons to a heart problem that was not known to him or them at the young age of 23.

This was a great sadness for them, but they did have the joy of having one granddaughter to brighten their life from the remaining son. Eydie would have been 85 next week and Steve is seven years younger than her.

They were fine vocalists and continued on with their popular songs instead of using rock and roll and all the stuff used in those days. Their popularity was constant. Eydie’s name was Edith and she shortened it to Edie and then people thought she was Eddie, so she changed her spelling. She wanted to change her last name, too, and her mom urged her not to because she said “everyone who knows you will not know it is you when you are successful.”

She and Steve were Jewish and I always thought she was Spanish or Italian from her last name. She was popular with the Spanish people and she sang a lot in Spanish.

They were the epitome of a show business couple who married, worked together and had a family and were quite accomplished in their vocation. They had the utmost sorrow a Mom and Dad can have in losing their child. Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman had the same love story for many years and they, too, worked together as a couple, acting sometimes together. They, too, lost a child.

I went online and there are some CD recordings still available. I think I may buy one for old time’s sake, so I can listen to their melodious voices. I will not forget the pleasant evening, we had being in their presence.

Steve and Eydie were good examples of how show business singers, actors and people in general should be acting in their personal lives. The young entertainers now could emulate them and that would be a wonderful honor for Eydie and Steve. They should always be remembered with the love we reserve for our decent show business personalities.

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Elita Sohmer Clayman Fairfax Station Patch