Caterina Valente, international singing star, dies at 93

She recorded 1950s hits, including the Latin-tinged “Malagueña” and “The Breeze and I,” and was a favourite of Dean Martin and Perry Como.

Singer Caterina Valente performs in 1955. She made her American television debut that year on
“The Colgate Comedy Hour.” (Albert Gillhausen/AP)

by Harrison Smith

September 12, 2024

Caterina Valente, a French-Italian singing star who spoke six languages and sang in 11, releasing hit records throughout Europe and performing on television with Dean Martin and Perry Como, died Sept. 9 at her home in Lugano, Switzerland. She was 93.

Her agent announced the death in a statement but did not cite a cause.

Raised in a family of Italian vaudeville performers, Ms. Valente rose to international prominence in the mid-1950s, releasing Latin-tinged pop and jazz songs that included a German-language version of “Malagueña” backed by composer Werner Müller’s orchestra, and “The Breeze and I,” which became a Top 20 hit in the United States.

Both songs were written by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona, puzzling some listeners who wondered, in the case of “Malagueña,” how a singer with an Italian name was singing a Spanish-language song in German.

Ms. Valente shrugged it off: She was simply “a European,” she said, although she acknowledged that her nationality could seem like a puzzle given that she settled in Switzerland, married a German and had parents who lived in Sweden and Russia before having their wedding in Finland.

A member of the seventh generation of performers in her show-business family, Ms. Valente picked up languages while touring Europe before and after World War II. She found that Italian was best for singing (Dutch was the hardest) but felt most at home in French, the language of her childhood. “I scream in French,” she explained to the New York Times.

Singing, dancing and playing guitar, Ms. Valente became known as “the Malagueña girl” in the United States, where she received a Grammy nomination in 1959 for her vocals on the love song “La Strada del’ Amore.” She became a mainstay of TV variety shows over the next decade, performing a medley of foreign-language hits with Bing Crosby, singing “That Old Black Magic” on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and holding her own while harmonizing with Ella Fitzgerald on Como’s “Kraft Music Hall.”

Ms. Valente was a favorite guest of Como, who used her name for the title of his hit song “Caterina,” and was also beloved by Martin, who hosted her on his show nine times and playfully fought comedian Dom DeLuise for a chance to dance with her on stage.

For one appearance on “The Dean Martin Show,” Ms. Valente walked out in a diaphanous coral pantsuit, taking a seat next to the host on a swinging, hammock-like couch. “Would you play something?” he asked, handing her a guitar. Yes, she replied, on one condition: “Would you sing with me?”

Ms. Valente proceeded to teasingly duet with Martin on the bossa nova standard “One Note Samba,” finishing with a flourish from the orchestra and a kiss on the cheek from her host. She was, he said, “the most wonderful, talented young lady.”

Ms. Valente signs autographs backstage at the Olympia in 1962. (-/AFP/Getty Images)

Ms. Valente ultimately co-hosted her own variety show, “The Entertainers,” which premiered on CBS in 1964 and also featured Carol Burnett and Bob Newhart. The series drew guest stars including Boris Karloff and Chita Rivera but was canceled after two dozen episodes.

She found more sustained success in Europe, where she continued to tour and perform regularly into her late 60s. She often played in Germany, where she also acted in movies, starred in television specials and wrote a cooking column for a weekly newspaper, reaching a devoted audience that first fell for her in 1954, when she released a German-language version of Cole Porter’s “I Love Paris,” her first hit song.

Unexpectedly, she also found a new audience in the United States in recent years after one of her early dance songs, “Bongo Cha Cha Cha,” was used for the 2019 movie “Spider-Man: Far From Home.” The song began trending on TikTok, accompanying millions of videos and, in 2021, inspiring a house remix by the British group Goodboys.

Ms. Valente in 1972, embracing French composer and pianist Michel Legrand after a show at the
Olympia in Paris. (Michel Lipchitz/AP)

The youngest of four children, Caterina Germaine Maria Valente was born in Paris on Jan. 14, 1931. Her father played the accordion, performing classical pieces by Bach and Chopin; her mother was a clown and singer who was said to have played 33 instruments. Ms. Valente joined the family act a few days before she turned 5, dancing the gavotte onstage in Stuttgart, Germany.

During World War II, her family “survived deportation to Italy, the Bombing of Breslau and Russian imprisonment,” according to her website, before making it back to Paris. Ms. Valente focused on refining her voice, listening to recordings by Ethel Waters and Billie Holiday, and launched her music career in 1953 while collaborating with German bandleader Kurt Edelhagen.

Three years later, she was performing in the ballroom of the Pierre hotel in Manhattan to generally positive reviews. Her singing “can develop into a frightening, savage howl or sink into a sweet whisper,” Time magazine said, adding that Ms. Valente had “a carnival kind of talent, not naturally adapted to the chic mannerisms, the sexy wiggles or the whining American vocal inflections that she often attempts, but a pleasant one nevertheless.”

Ms. Valente with her son Eric in 1965, at their home in Lugano, Switzerland. (AP)

Ms. Valente was twice married and divorced — first to Erik van Aro, a German juggler who became her manager, and then to British pianist Roy Budd, who composed the scores for movies including “Get Carter.” Survivors include a son from her first marriage, Eric van Aro, a jazz singer; and a son from her second marriage, Alexander Budd.

Onstage, she often sang and danced with her brother Silvio Francesco, forming what Washington Post journalist William Rice described in 1967 as “one of the most appealing brother-sister team[s] in show business.” Silvio died in 2000.

“I enjoy performing,” Ms. Valente told the Los Angeles Times in 1987, before a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. “It’s very conceited, I know, but I get no greater pleasure than to entertain an audience for two hours. Maybe they forget their own problems; maybe they’re happy.” She had recorded an English-language album with the Count Basie Orchestra the previous year but, she continued, “I prefer the stage — live audiences.”

Harrison Smith is a reporter on The Washington Post's obituaries desk. Since joining the obituaries section in 2015, he has profiled big-game hunters, fallen dictators and Olympic champions. He sometimes covers the living as well, and previously co-founded the South Side Weekly, a community newspaper in Chicago.

First published at The Washington Post, September 12, 2024

Addendum: Caterina Valente and Dean Martin - One Note Samba

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