Obituary : Louis Ruggiero; Big Band Era Trumpeter

Louis Ruggiero, a professional trumpeter during the Big Band era who played with such luminaries as Jimmy Dorsey and Fred Waring, died Thursday in Camarillo Convalescent Hospital of Alzheimer’s disease. He was 78.

Ruggiero, who went by the stage name Lou Rogers, was also the first husband of La Verne Andrews, one of the Andrew Sisters, the phenomenally successful singing trio that sold millions of records during their heyday in the 1940s.

He was born the son of Italian immigrants on May 12, 1917, in Roseto, Pa.

“He was discovered by Fred Waring when he was 19 years old at Shawnee on the Delaware River, which is a golf resort, and Fred Waring owned that place for many, many years,” said Jean Ruggiero, his second wife, who lives in Camarillo. “When he was playing with Fred Waring on the radio in New York City, the Andrews Sisters had their own show. . . . When he was finished playing, the Andrews Sisters were coming on in the same studio, and that’s how he met La Verne Andrews.”

He was married to La Verne from 1948 until her death in 1967.

After playing for Waring three years, Ruggiero went on to play with such jazz musicians as Claude Thornhill, Charlie Spivak and Mitchell Ayers before retiring in 1968.

“He liked to play and he liked the life--it was exciting,” Jean Ruggiero said.

He married Jean in 1970. The couple had lived in Ventura County for 18 years--in Camarillo since 1980. Avid golfers, they were members of the Las Posas Country Club, and Ruggiero continued playing the trumpet with a senior band in the city.

The couple remained close to Maxene Andrews, the middle sister of the Andrews Sisters, who died last week at the age of 79. She visited him in a Camarillo hospital last July.

“Maxene, Louis and myself were always close, we were like family all these years,” Jean Ruggiero said. The third sister was Patty Andrews.

Her husband accepted the Congressional Medal of Honor awarded posthumously to La Verne at a ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hilton in the mid-1980s, she said.

In addition to his wife, Ruggiero is survived by his stepdaughter and her husband, Andrea and Bill Whittinghill of Thousand Oaks; a stepson and his wife, David and Keena Kapter of Northridge; brothers Daniel, Alfred and Arthur Ruggiero, all of Pennsylvania; sisters Sylvia Palicelli and Angeline Ruggiero, both of Pennsylvania; one grandson and numerous nieces and nephews.

A brother, Neil Ruggiero, and two sisters, Celia Sabitino and Jeanne Bosco, preceded him in death.

Memorial services are scheduled for 1 p.m. Thursday in the Chapel of the Islands, Conejo Mountain Memorial Park in Camarillo.

Memorial donations may be made to the Alzheimer’s Assn.