Abbe Lane Dies: Nightclub Singer, Recording Artist & Actor Was 93

Abbe Lane, a nightclub singer, recording artist and actor whose popularity in the 1960s and ’70s made her a familiar presence on late night talk shows and variety series, died April 25 of natural causes in Los Angeles. She was 93. Her death was reported by her son Steven Leff to Deadline’s sister publication The Hollywood Reporter. Born Abigail Francine Lassman on December 14, 1932, in Brooklyn, Lane began her show business career as a child actor and singer who landed on Broadway as a dancer while still in her teens (she also performed on stage under the name Abbe Marshall). It was during a live performance that she was noticed by big band leader Xavier Cugat, who hired her to sing for his Latin-style band for a European tour. The two married in 1952, when she was 19 and he was 52, divorcing 12 years later (she later said he mentally abused her; The divorce came two year’s prior to Cugat’s marriage to a young flamenco guitarist named Charo). In 1992, Lane wrote a semi-autobiographical novel titled But Where Is Love?, which included a teenage girl character who had been unhappily married to a much older man. Due to the European tour, Lane’s popularity overseas surged, and she made more than 20 Italian films through the mid-1960s while continuing her career as a singer and recording artist. DEADLINE RELATED VIDEO: In the States, she was a Las Vegas headliner and appeared frequently on television from the late ’50s and well into the ’70s. She appeared frequently on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show (under various hosts), The Red Skelton Show, The Milton Berle Show, The Hollywood Palace, The Dean Martin Show and many others. She was a regular presence on the game shows of the era, including Password, The Match Game, To Tell The Truth and What’s My Line, and as an actress had guest roles on such TV fare as Burke’s Law, F Troop, The Flying Nun, The Brady Bunch, Love American Style, Hart to Hart and Amazing Stories. In the troubled 1983 feature The Twilight Zone: The Movie, she appeared as a stewardess in director George Miller’s segment that remade the classic tv episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” with John Lithgow in the gremlin-spotting William Shatner role. Following her divorce from Cugat, Lane married CMA agent Perry Leff, who died in 2020. She is survived by sons Steven and Andrew and a granddaughter.