![]() ![]() The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. She told him – and it was true, due to Marilyn’s superstar status – that the press would go wild. “I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt … she personally called the owner of the Mocambo, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night. In Ella’s own words in a later recollection: Marilyn had been listening to Ella for years. But at the time, a singer of the reputedly scandalous new music known as jazz didn’t just waltz onto the stage of such a respectable venue, especially given the racial attitudes of the time.” If you wanted to play to an influential crowd in Hollywood back in the 1950s, you had to play the Mocambo, the Sunset Strip nightclub frequented by the likes of Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Lana Turner, Bob Hope, Sophia Loren, and Howard Hughes. The Mocambo was a popular Hollywood club frequented by many movie stars, and it was Marilyn’s favorite. One such incident involved Ella Fitzgerald, whose recordings Marilyn studied over and over for inspiration and emulation. But it would be remiss not to take a look underneath her exterior at the beauty that was also within her, and how she helped play a role in opening up musical venues to black performers. ![]() Marilyn Monroe is only rarely credited for her considerable intellect, or her compassion and courage. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums.”īut in spite of her great talent, and like other black performers in the 1950’s, she was at first denied admission to a number of hotels, restaurants, and clubs.īut Ella had one advocate she didn’t even know about: Marilyn Monroe. As a website devoted to Ella Fitzgerald avers:ĭubbed ‘The First Lady of Song,’ Ella Fitzgerald was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. ![]()
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