Frances Faye; Bawdy Nightclub Singer

Frances Faye, the bawdy Queen of Camp whose double-entendre songs and throaty laughter made her a favorite on the Los Angeles saloon scene for 40 years, is dead.

Teri Shepherd, her friend and longtime companion, said Thursday that Miss Faye, whose fans were often as boisterous as the pianist and singer herself, died Nov. 8 after a series of strokes. She was 79.

In an era when cocktail lounges and piano bars permeated the city, Miss Faye was a particularly popular attraction.

In such nightclubs as Ye Little Club or showrooms such as Ciro’s or Studio One’s Backlot Theater, she spun a web of music and off-color jokes in which she parodied her bisexuality while teasing her primarily heterosexual audiences. She changed the masculine pronouns in her music to feminine and viewed the male-dominated world with a jaundiced but jaunty eye.

As Times jazz critic Leonard Feather wrote in a 1978 review: “This is not a scene where Anita Bryant would be at ease.”

Her antics came during an era when gay male entertainers were trapped in the closet and gay female entertainers were not even to be imagined.

Born Frances Cohen in Brooklyn, she was playing piano in New York speak-easys while still in her teens.

In 1936, she was featured in the film “Double or Nothing,” which starred Bing Crosby. Crosby recommended her to his record label, Decca, and the result was her first hit song, “No Regrets.”

She toured Europe and Australia and in 1977 played to type as a wise-cracking madam in the Louis Malle film “Pretty Baby.”

She continued to play club dates until 1981, Shepherd said.

Other survivors include a brother, Marty.