Best
known for her marriage to Latin bandleader
Xavier Cugat,
AbbeLane
was one of those people who was born to perform. Her career stared off
on radio as a child star, them she moved on to being a song and dance girl
on Broadway. She then moved the route most glamour girls did, to the West
Coast. She had her hand in movies and television, but it was her singing
that caught most people's (including
Cugat's) attention.
Her formula for success wasn't the 3 B's (bold, brash, and blonde) that
usually made a starlette a starlette in the 1950's and early 60's. This
fiery redhead, instead, had the same sort of sultry quality about her like
some of her European contemporaries (like
Sophia
Loren and Gina Lollobrigida). To get a feel for
who she was, here's a great feature about her
from Adam magazine from 1963.
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