Anita O’Day’s Life: It’s a Real ‘Torch Song’

After 80 or so albums and almost 55 years in the music profession, she sometimes is referred to as the “legendary” Anita O’Day.

Her nightclub performances continue to draw praise, and now, unexpectedly, there is recognition from another industry.

“A lawyer called and said one of my songs was going to be in some movie,” she said matter-of-factly the other night before her closing show at Vine St. Bar & Grill.

The song is an old standard, “Can’t We Be Friends,” which shows up prominently as mood music for the new movie “Torch Song Trilogy,” starring Harvey Fierstein, Matthew Broderick and Anne Bancroft.

She could not recall the song, when she recorded it (1960) or the album from which it was selected (“Incomparable”).

“How does it go?” she asked. But then melodies never did much for the jazz singer anyway. “It gets a little dumb singing melody every night. I have a lot of rhythm, not much voice.”

The lawyer told O’Day she would receive screen credit and some residuals.

“If I live,” she said, “I can use it.”

Recently, O’Day was injured in a bicycle accident near her trailer park in Hemet and had to cancel a gig in Palm Springs with the newly reorganized Gene Krupa ghost band.

Signed by Krupa as a virtual unknown in 1941, O’Day remained five years before joining Stan Kenton and others.

“The big-band years,” she said, smiling. “I really miss them.”

Asked about her health generally, she didn’t mince words. “I’m old ,” she replied pungently, “sixty-nine, and spell it out, s-i-x-t-y-n-i-n-e.”

Born Anita Colton in 1919 in Chicago, she changed her name to O’Day early in life. Her reason: O’Day was the pig-Latin pronunciation for the word dough, of which she expected to accumulate considerable. And for a period, she did.

“I made $100,000 a year for nine years with Verve (Records),” she said, but “my partner took it, my manager took it, my husbands took it, my road manager took it, the government got it and I helped spend some of it.

“Four years ago, I had $200 to my name. Now I have $300, but I don’t owe anyone.”

Single since 1952, with no living relatives, she lives alone in the desert community of Hemet because “it’s quiet, I get a lot of rest and the price is right, $138 a month.”

Her 1981 autobiography, “High Times, Hard Times,” has been updated by co-writer George Eells and is scheduled to be reissued in January. She hopes the book, which focuses on her heroin addiction two decades ago, will make a little money and possibly lead to a movie, but she’s not counting on it.

“We’ve had four or five nibbles,” she said with little enthusiasm. Beverly D’Angelo reportedly owns the film rights, and Cybill Shepherd has expressed interest in the project.

In 1985, O’Day celebrated her 50th anniversary as an entertainer at Carnegie Hall and has been working a bit since then.

“The government took away my Social Security last year because I worked too much.”

Nonetheless, life remains, at best, a struggle. Still, she seems relatively content.

“I own my trailer, I own my ’68 Pontiac, and I own my dog, a Yorkie terrier. What else do you need?”

For O’Day, there is one other need.

“The stage,” she acknowledged, “that’s my life. I come alive when I have that going.”