US:Frankie Laine, the full-voiced singer who became one of the most popular entertainers of the 1950s with such hits as I Believe, Jezebeland the theme to the TV western Rawhide, died on Tuesday at the age of 93.
Laine died of a heart attack after hip-replacement surgery in hospital in San Diego, said his long-time producer, Jimmy Marino.
Laine had otherwise been in good health, and his last public performance was at the age of 92, singing his first big hit, That's My Desire, on a television special. He tallied 21 gold records and dozens of songs on the singles charts in the US and abroad, selling roughly 250 million albums.
He is perhaps best remembered by a younger generation of American fans for his recordings of the theme to the hit television western Rawhide and the theme to Mel Brooks' 1974 big-screen western spoof Blazing Saddles.
Born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio to immigrant parents in Chicago's Little Italy neighbourhood in 1913, Laine began singing as a choir boy and performed at a local ballroom before leaving home as a teenager during the Great Depression to try his luck as a marathon dancer.
According to his official biography, Laine and his partner set the all-time marathon dance record in Atlantic City, New Jersey, staying on their feet for 3,501 hours over 145 consecutive days. He also worked as a dance instructor, singing waiter and nightclub performer before getting his big break in the mid-1940s, when Hoagy Carmichael heard him sing one of Carmichael's own compositions, Rocking Chair. That discovery led to a steady job at Billy Berg's jazz club in Hollywood and a recording contract with Mercury Records. His first studio session recording was the ballad That's My Desire, which was No 4 on the American charts in 1947.
Two No 1 hits followed the next year, That Lucky Old Sunand Mule Train, and after a third chart-topper in 1950, The Cry of the Wild Goose, Laine signed with Columbia Records.
As his popularity faded following his 1957 hit Love Is a Golden Ring, Laine turned to the international cabaret circuit and had mostly retired by the 1980s. - ( Reuters)