(Originally published by the Daily News on June 16, 1996. This story was written by Don Singleton.)
Singer Ella Fitzgerald, one of the 20th century’s most famed and beloved jazz figures, died yesterday at her Beverly Hills home after a long illness.
The 78-year-old “First Lady of Song,” who had been battling diabetes for many years and had lost both legs to the disease, died peacefully, surrounded by relatives and friends, said her spokeswoman, Andrea Hecht.
The cause of death was not immediately reported.
“She passed away during the night,” said lawyer Richard Rosman.
“Her fans will remember her and love her; that’s what’s important.”
It was an understatement — in a unique career that spanned well over half a century, Fitzgerald became a veritable icon of the jazz world, recording more than 250 albums and making countless concert appearances all over the globe.
Comfortable with ballads, moody melodies and the lightning-fast scat riffs that she made a specialty, she was one of the most familiar voices in both jazz and pop idioms.
And one of the most loved. As news of her death spread, tributes began pouring in. “She was the most perfectly musical singer that there ever was,” said Will Friedwald, a jazz historian.
The astounding career started on a whim one afternoon in 1934 when she was 16 and some friends dared her to enter an amateur night contest at a theater in Harlem.
In a clear, pure voice, she sang two popular songs of the day, “Judy” and “The Object of My Affection,” and when the crowd went wild she won the $10 prize.
By chance, an associate of bandleader Chick Webb was sitting in the audience that day and he knew gold when he heard it. He convinced Webb to give the teenager a tryout, and Webb signed her up for a band date at Yale University.
The Yalies loved her and Webb hired her. Even more, he adopted her — literally.
Born and orphaned in Newport News, Va., Ella was on her own in New York City. Webb and his wife took her in, and Webb became the teen’s legal guardian, carefully supervising and managing every aspect of her life both on and off the bandstand.
Under Webb’s tutelage, Ella quickly became famous, appearing on radio shows and in nightclubs. She turned out to be a composer as well as a vocalist — one day she whipped up some improvisations around an old nursery rhyme and came up with “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” one of the best-selling records of all time and a resident of the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Musicians often said she used her voice like a musical instrument, one that could hit barrel-deep bass notes as well as pure, glassy highs.
She had an intuitive ability to improvise both rhythmically and melodically, to interpret and embroider both music and lyrics; put Fitzgerald together with a great jazz pianist, bassist and drummer, and you instantly had yourself a great jazz quartet.
A songwriter as well as a singer, Fitzgerald wrote or cowrote a number of popular songs, including “You Showed Me the Way,” “Once is Enough for Me” and “Please Tell Me the Truth.”
She was named favorite singer in many jazz polls, and honors beyond number were awarded to her over the years. In 1979, she was made a Kennedy Center honoree along with Aaron Copland, Henry Fonda, Martha Graham and Tennessee Williams.
During a concert tour in August 1985, she was hospital briefly for treatment of fluid buildup in her lungs. In July 1986, she was hospitalized again, suffering congestive heart failure.
She underwent bypass surgery the following September.
In 1993, diabetes led to the double amputation.
Ella was married twice, in 1941-1943 to shipyard worker Benny Kornegay, and in 1948-1952 to jazz bassist Ray Brown.
They had a son, Ray Brown Jr., in 1950. Fitzgerald also raised a niece. A private funeral is planned, Hecht said.
