Unexpected Music History - Tony Orlando

Did you know that Jerry Lee Lewis introduced Tony Orlando to his future wife? Or that that Orlando landed in a psych ward due to the potent combination of cocaine and grief? Read on...

Say what you will about Tony Orlando, the guy can sing like a mofo.

A lot of peeps from my generation remember him with Dawn (Telma Hopkins, Joyce Vincent Wilson) and their fun, catchy, chart toppers, “Knock Three Times,” (which l shamelessly adore), “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You),” the unfortunately titled “Candida,” and a song I admit I’m long sick of, “Tie A Yellow Ribbon (Round the Old Oak Tree).”

Most folks don’t realize he started as a doo-wop and R&B singer as a teenager and was damn good at it. Orlando hit the charts for the first time when he was just 16.

He also became a songwriter and music executive, hired by Clive Davis to be General Manager of Columbia Records’ April-Blackwood Music Publishing. Later he was VP of CBS Music and signed Barry Manilow.

All this was before the wider public knew him as the handsome centerpiece of Tony Orlando and Dawn, a genial jokester and smooth crooner who had 17 Top 40 hits and a hit TV variety show (back when those were a thing.)

I actually miss TV variety shows. A lot.

Orlando was also crazy good friends with Freddie Prinze when actor/comic Prinze was the hottest ticket in America.

In 1973, at 19 years old, Prinze took off like a rocket ship after an appearance on Johnny Carson where he became the first new comic ever to be invited to sit with (on that night) Carson himself, Ed McMahon, and Sammy Davis Jr.

It was like inviting him to take the throne.

He didn’t get off it for 4 years, until, in a fit of drug-induced despair, a pending divorce, and very likely long-term emotional health issues, Prinze shot himself in the head in front of his manager, Dusty Snyder, who had come over to comfort a distraught Prinze after midnight on Jan. 28, 1977.

When the news broke, America went into shock. I know I did. Prinze was my favorite TV star. I’d lost my brother to the same manner of suicide just three weeks before. It was a weirdly disturbing double blow for a teenage girl.

The talented young Prinze had appeared onstage with Cher and Shirley Maclaine. He performed for President Jimmy Carter 10 days before his death.

His sitcom with Jack Albertson, “Chico and The Man” was hugely popular.

After being crowned on “The Tonight Show” Prinze went on to guest host the show several times, welcoming talent like The Jackson 5 and Richard Pryor.

Orlando was woken from a deep sleep by his wife, Elaine (who previously dated Buddy Holly and was introduced to Tony by Jerry Lee Lewis), and she told him the horrible news.

Orlando and Prinze were firm friends – Puerto Rican “brothers” who both made it out of poverty to stardom. True buddies…and in those days they were also drug buddies.

Orlando had an epiphany in early 1977 that there was no good destination on the cocaine highway, and had been clean for a few weeks when Prinze shot himself.

He rushed to the UCLA Medical Center in a daze, parked illegally, and made his way to the ICU where Prinze’s friends and family were gathering.

In his memoir “Halfway To Paradise” Orlando called it a scene of anguish and confusion.

He went in to see Freddie, who was in a coma, his head wrapped in bandages, and touched his friend’s hand. Orlando suddenly became furious.

“Freddie, you son-of-a-bitch! Why’d you do it? That bullet didn’t just hit you – it hit us all.”

I started sobbing so sorrowfully I felt like I wanted to cry forever. And I was so angry I wanted to keep right on shouting Why’d you do it, man? Why?

Tony was in the room when the doctors, by family agreement, took 22-year-old Prinze off life support.

In addition to the family, friends, and acquaintances hanging out in the hospital hallway, so was Orlando’s and Prinze’s drug dealer.