Jazz Legend Anita O’Day Still Happiest Behind the Microphone

Anita O’Day gingerly slips a black glove on her right hand before taking the stage at an art deco supper club, its dim lights casting a glow over a crowd that has come to hear the scat-singing jazz legend.

She gently taps her foot to the sound of the beat and throws her hips back and forth, then casually nods her head at the pianist before easing into a melody.

Her voice is soft, a shadow of her glory days a generation or two ago when she performed with bands led by Gene Krupa or Stan Kenton, and did duets with trumpeter Roy Eldridge.

“When I’m singing, I’m happy,” the 79-year-old singer says. “I’m doing what I can do, and this is my contribution to life.”

But O’Day only gets to sing once a week, Tuesdays, at the Atlas Supper Club.

On her six days off, she lives in a modest, sparsely decorated room in the DanMar Retirement Villa. She breaks the boredom and loneliness of that cloistered life by performing at the supper club for three brief hours, giving audiences a glimpse of a singer whose ballad work once inspired vocalists like June Christy and Chris Connor.

Decorated in soft browns and yellows, the club itself echoes the nostalgia of O’Day’s years of fame. Its architectural style consciously imitates the glamour of the 1940s when Los Angeles came of age in the boom that followed World War II. The scene today has an international bent, and O’Day stands apart from a lineup that tends more toward Afro-Latin jazz.

But the fans--hipsters in their 20s and jazz enthusiasts in their 70s--come for O’Day, who will appear June 22 at New York City’s Avery Fisher Hall as part of the JVC Jazz Festival.

Turning her back to the audience and chuckling to herself, O’Day at times seems to be in her own world.

She performs nearly all the songs that made her famous--”And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine,” “Let Me Off Uptown,” “Honeysuckle Rose,” “I Can’t Get Started” and “Sweet Georgia Brown.”

Between songs, she jokes with the crowd as they eat from a menu that blends tastes from around the world: Thai, Mexican, Cuban, Italian, Indian and American.

She often glances at her music resting on top of the piano when she forgets the words. As her fans see it, her fading memory is the only evidence that the years have passed.

“She’s so timeless,” says Katharine Kramer, daughter of filmmaker Stanley Kramer and a die-hard O’Day fan. “Everything she did in the ‘50s and ‘60s--it still works today.”

O’Day was born in Chicago and left home at 12. She brags about being “self-made” and never having had a singing lesson.

She began her career as a teenager and later recorded hits. In performance, she insisted on wearing a band jacket instead of a dress, so she’d be seen as a member of the band and not a female adornment.

In her prime, O’Day was described as a scat singer and a natural improviser. Some said her voice came close to Billie Holiday’s in her ballads.

Her fame came at a price, though.

She suffered from a 16-year heroin addiction and an even longer alcohol problem. Her reckless lifestyle and short stays in jail on drug-related charges earned her the name “Jezebel of Jazz.”

“Jezebel,” O’Day says, shaking her head. “I hated that word.”

But in an interview at her Hollywood home, she doesn’t hide the past.

“I tried everything,” she says. “Curiosity will make you go your own way.”

She recalls overdosing many times, including before going onstage. One overdose nearly killed her in her late 40s, and made her quit drugs. But not drink.

“I was mad and I was alone,” O’Day recalls. “I really didn’t care about much, so I’d have a drink.”

In December 1996, she fell down the stairs in her home in Hemet, Calif., after drinking. She was admitted to a hospital with a broken arm, then ended up with severe food poisoning and pneumonia, problems she blames bitterly on hospital staff.

“I can’t swallow. I can’t eat,” O’Day says, recalling the experience. “So they put a hole in my stomach and hooked me up to a bag.”

O’Day quickly went from 129 to 86 pounds. “The doctor said to me there is no way she could possibly live,” said Alan Eichler, her publicist and friend of 12 years.

She survived, but her recovery --both physical and emotional--was painful. She left the hospital in a wheelchair and only started walking seven months ago. Her right hand is still paralyzed.

While she was hospitalized, O’Day’s home was burglarized and much of what was dear to her was stolen, including her dog. All that was left was sold in order to pay for expenses, forcing her to move into a retirement home.

Today, performances aside, her life tends toward the melancholy.

The $100 she makes each Tuesday night goes toward her $1,400 monthly room and board. Although married twice, to musician Don Carter, then golfer and businessman Carl Hoff, O’Day had no children. And when the subject of marriage comes up, she shakes her head.

“My mom was right,” she says, laughing. “All men are dogs.”

With no family and few friends, she often sits alone in her room, looking to her weekly performances as her personal respite.

She still takes a daily morning walk, dressed in perfectly creased clothes. Her meals are brought to her room, and she passes time by watching television and occasionally singing to herself.

She gets someone else to do her hair and makeup, anxious to look her best in case friends or fans visit.

A few mementos decorate the room, including a 1997 lifetime achievement award from the National Endowment for the Arts and a picture on the dresser of her being honored by city officials.

A lonely paper calendar hangs on the room’s off-white walls. Each day that has passed is properly crossed off with a dark-colored marker.

“Moment to moment,” she says, “that’s how I live.”