The flyer advertised performances by Pearl McKinnon and the Kodaks, Earl Lewis and the Channels, the Cleveland Still Dubs, and the Impalas. Last in line is Emira Eagle (Lela Rochon), a demure, well-bred Southern educator. Key parts of this chronology are in dispute, of course. She says he didn't mean to hurt her, and blames his behavior on his addictions. Also Read:Family of Lorenzo Dominic Lavalle. It was modified to just Lymon and Goldner on subsquent recordings for the next decade before Goldner's name was replaced by Levy's. Yes, the three women are gorgeous and talented, and it is fun to see them having at one another. But her secretary and her booking agent both testified that they were witnesses to the wedding. He had always regarded Zola as his stage mother, she said. He decided to head to California in hopes that his old friend Zola Taylor could help him get some singing gigs in Los Angeles. He was inducted into the Army in December 1966, and sent to Fort Gordon, Ga. By the time Pvt. Her published account of the trial and the three women contesting to be named Frankies legal wife and heir was titled The Three Wives: The Legacy Of Love. Lymon was 14 years old when he began dating Zola Taylor (Berry), the lead singer of the Platters in the mid-1950s. Morris Levy had not become a force in the music business through fear alone; he was also very clever. Similarly, one of the unexamined factors in his turning to hard drugs was apparently the difficulties caused by his voice beginning to change. Leon Borstein, Levy's attorney, said that Levy "assisted in the writing of the song; you have to remember, if he added one word, that's sufficient" to justify co-authorship. "And he was still just a kid when he started on the next wife, Elizabeth Waters," said Nava. Set designers Clare Scarpulla, Michael Bernard. The Surrogate Court judge hearing the widowhood case has been pushing for a settlement. And that was that, the last of the hits. "He was honest, completely honest," Elizabeth insisted, "Up to a point." "Some drug users, they rob, they steal, they do everything to sustain that habit." View contact information: phones, addresses, emails and networks. NEW YORK The judge who last winter heard three middle-aged women testify to their heartaches with the late Frankie Lymon the doo-wop idol who cowrote and sang "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" and died 20 years ago of a heroin overdose has found Elizabeth Waters, 46, of Philadelphia, to be Lymon's legal widow. Elizabeth 'Mickey' Waters : You see, y'all gotta understand. This time his bride was Emira Eagle, an educated, churchgoing elementary school teacher who lived with her family in nearby Augusta. Believing that she had the stronger case, Big Seven agreed to pay Elizabeth an additional $5,000 if the federal lawsuit was dismissed because the plaintiff (Emira) was determined to not be the legal widow. The Surrogate Court judge hearing the widowhood case pushed for a settlement. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. William McCracken, who represents Emira Eagle, called her at the elementary school where she teaches. Id have killed him, I was so angry, Zola told Span. Waters provides convenient access to libraries, the . Paula Span reported that Frankie and Elizabeth got married in Alexandria, Virginia, in early 1964. That suit was suspended while Lambert determined which woman was Lymon's widow. Owning the rights to 1950s rock and roll songs meant more in the 1980s than it did when they were hits. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Back in New Jersey, Ronnie Italiano and the UGHA had adhered to Emiras aforementioned wishes and held off on moving forward with their project to acquire and place a memorial tombstone on Frankie Lymons grave until her lawsuit was settled. He was the . It teaches him responsibility and how to stand on his own two feet. The next month, according to Zola, she and Frankie drove to Tijuana and got married in a small chapel. Lymon in February 1967 talked about his life and show business career with Chronicle reporter P.K. and never miss an insightful take by the TFIGlobal team, This website uses cookies. She said he didn't mean to hurt her, and blamed his behavior on his addictions. Elizabeth Waters is currently single. Emira testified in Surrogate Court that her arrangement called for any money recovered through her suit to be shared 50-50 with Rubin, after expenses and legal fees, which had already reached a substantial subtotal. Elizabeths claim to be Frankies wife and heir was weakened by the fact that she was still legally married when she wed Frankie in 1964. So estimates Chuck Rubin, a former agent who's become a kind of musical bounty hunter. Zola Taylor Lymon. Then he called Elizabeth and urged her to join him. The Happenings' 45. According to the obituary published Sunday in The Augusta Chronicle, funeral arrangements will be announced by W.H. Emira came to New York to arrange for Frankies funeral mass and burial. Costumes Elisabetta Beraldo. As a child star, however, I was subjected to discipline from agents, managers and lawyers, but it was a discipline that protected me from myself so to speak. I often tell people that Frankie didnt end up living a glorified life. Elizabeth Lymon says she married Lymon on Jan. 23, 1964, in Alexandria, Va., and bore him a daughter the following year. Each woman suspected he was sleeping with the other, and both apparently were correct. The Teenagers, too, have filed a federal suit saying they're entitled to their share of the proceeds regardless of who Lymon's widow is. All rights reserved. * Playing in general release throughout Southern California. When she and Frankie fought about it, Elizabeth told the court, he pulled a gun on her and fled. Frankie had started using heroin again, and she was forced to hide the money from his occasional gigs in a hole in the wall of their apartment to prevent him from using it to buy drugs. People sometimes compare him with the young Michael Jackson, who also knew how to combine innocence and knowingness. Frankie Lymon had been on his record label for most of his career, and Levy knew much more about the singer than Emira, who had only been with him for a year. Consequently, he left behind a tangled and miserable legal and financial mess along with three wounded women. The signs were plain, she says now, that Lymon was floundering, working only intermittently, addicted to drugs and probably to alcohol as well. It makes him not only a good soldier, but a better individual. Screenplay by Tina Andrews. "They wanted to impress their friends in school" by being on the radio. Instead, he has posthumously provoked a trial that will determine which of the three women he is said to have married -- without ever scrupling to divorce any of them -- is really his widow and heir. Frankie Lymon/Wife. Depending on how the judge rules, the decision may reactivate a federal suit to wrest Lymon's royalties and publishing rights from the record industry executive who claims to own them. The female lawyer stated that the battle began shortly after Emira asked the Georgia court to declare her as the administrator of Lemmons Estate. Emira's attorneys have advised her not to talk to reporters until after the Surrogate Court decision. Her obituary was posted on February 9, 2023. An employee of a furniture store in north Philadelphia, she was in South Carolina for a family funeral. Instead of filling my house with old moldy magazines, I scanned them (in most cases, photographed them) and filled a storage area with moldy magazines. None of the many tracks they made together or separately ever duplicated the jubilance of their early records. He figured that once the case was over there would be no problem," Olb recalled. "Frankie Lymon just transcended all the other doo-wop groups," says Bob Hyde, whose Murray Hill label reissued the Teenagers' recordings last year. Emiras Frankie Lymon is not this drunken bum, Pomeroy said. The fact came to notice from a judge during a trial where three middle-aged women (Ash Taylor, Elizabeth Waters, and Amira Eagle) spoke about their miseries. When a touring musical about Lymon's life came to the Imperial Theater in May of 2013, the cast invited Bryant to be the honored guest with her family and took photos with her after the show. They point to the absence of documentation from Mexico as evidence that Zola and Frankie never married at all. Published by Mobile Register and Baldwin County from Jan. 25 to Jan. 27, 2023. Paula Span, Frankie was addicted to drugs and alcohol and Elizabeth, who was 19 at the time, was sympathetic. Thats why were here today.. It was also Rubin who located Emira, put her in touch with an attorney, helped line up witnesses and documentation. He didn't mind. In his book, Me, the Mob, and the Music, Tommy James characterized Levy as willing to strong-arm the artists signed to Roulette, and that the label was notorious for not paying its artists for their record sales. It spent months on the pop charts, led to national tours and TV appearances and bubble-gum cards with the Teenagers' picture on them. "Sell, sell, sell," he advised. It also dooms, at least for now, the hopes of singer Zola Mae Taylor of Los Angeles, the female member of the original Platters, and Emira Eagle, a schoolteacher from Augusta, Ga., each of whom had claimed in court that she was Lymon's widow and heir. She met Frankie when he was 20-years-old, backstage at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. Levy had been arrested earlier in 1986 as part of the F.B.I. The stone was dedicated by his fans and friends on February 27, 1988, the 20th anniversary of Frankie's death and one month before the opening arguments in the case that would determine his legal wife and rightful heir. Zola had also been a teenage star. "The only thing Morris Levy had to do with it was to collect the money," Santiago said. They're awaiting the decision now, the quiet schoolteacher from Georgia, the brassy singer from California and the struggling part-time bill collector from Philadelphia, all nursing their separate memories of life with a former teen idol. Emira Eagle Lymon Bryant, the legally declared widow of '50s teenage rock star Frankie Lymon, died Saturday at AU Medical Center. -- those he abused and betrayed seem loath to condemn him. I loved him like a brother.". Funeral services will be held Monday, February 27, 2023, at 3:00 PM from the chapel. Half adroit flatterer, half emotional infant, the films Lymon offers hardly a clue as to why his real-life counterpart was so irresistible to women. He left no fortune, but his name was listed as one of the songwriters of Why Do Fools Fall In Love. She told the court that she wanted to help him get back on his feet and regain all he had lost, but that trying to help him wasnt easy. "Just make sure the artist or writer gets his share." Elizabeth Waters was a struggling part-time bill collector from Philadelphia. It was painfully revealed in court testimony, however, that Frankie Lymon, for all his talent, was a bigamist, hustler, liar, and thief. Yet she also talked about Lymon's ruptured family, and, again, his drug dependency. A headstone was not part of the package, however, and Frankie Lymon was buried in an unmarked grave at St. Raymonds Cemetery. Span wrote that Frankie was a soldier for most of his brief marriage to Emira. So the trial went forward. US fails miserably against Russia at the crucial UN Vote. What seemed pretty clear from all the filings is the reason why, 20 years afterward, it had become so important to be Frankie Lymon's legal widow. Elizabeth testified that she did not object. Lymon, known for being the lead vocalist of the world-wide popular rock group Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, died less than a year later on Feb. 27, 1968, at age 25 in New York City, reportedly of a heroin overdose. ", Meanwhile, Paula Span used both interviews and court testimony to profile each of the widows in her story. Span wrote that Rubin gets his share too. "Remember, Frankie needed the money badly," Borstein says. As a result, they fought and separated numerous times. 1, "that would draw people to him.". He was previously married to Emira Lymon, Zola Taylor and Elizabeth Waters. It didnt last long, however. "I'm not a person to hold a grudge. The Lymon she knew was more of a homebody than a homeboy--someone so different than the man the other two women married that, as someone sarcastically comments, it seems like anything in a skirt was Frankies type.. Levy declined direct comment of the Lymon matter. 1 pop hit for Diana Ross in 1981 and recently turned up in a greeting card commercial. Span wrote that Frankies relationship with Zola was not entirely maternal. He once told a magazine interviewer that he'd been a pimp since he was 10. While growing up in New York City, I never had much discipline, Lymon told The Chronicle. Back in the 1950s, when a star-struck group like the Teenagers finally got to audition for the head of a record company, such matters as copyright barely figured in the conversation. Emira Eagle Lymon. Franklin Joseph Lymon (September 30, 1942 - February 27, 1968) was an American rock and roll/rhythm and blues singer and songwriter, best known as the boy soprano lead singer of the New York City-based early rock and roll doo-wop group The Teenagers.The group was composed of five boys, all in their early to mid-teens. When trading Miss Thing"-type insults doesnt clear the air, a lawsuit to determine the identity of the true widow and heir to Lymons royalties becomes inevitable. Hell, the boy had so many needle marks on him, I thought he was a God-damned . ELIZABETH OGLE WATERS OBITUARY. Also Read:Uplift Suasion: the notion to change racism, Your email address will not be published. Debunking the Myth: Is Maduro a Dictator? They were married in June 1967 at the Beulah Grove Baptist Church, with 50 members of Emira's family in attendance and a reception afterward at the Capri Lounge. The only child he is known to have fathered died hours after her birth. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. He had a bad year in 1966. The sum, he says, "might have been $1,500. "She never disputed his role in the creation and authorship of this song," her attorney says. "I'd have killed him, I was so angry," she says. Chuck Rubin. Ms. When she recovered, she declared that "she knew it; she'd had faith all along," Peterson said. Lymon C. Reese Lymon Clifton Reese was born in Stanley, Pike County, Arkansas, on April 27, 1917, to Samuel Wesley Reese and Nancy Elizabeth (Betty) Daniel Reese. Frankie, by 1965, had pretty much been reduced to lip-synching at record hops on the East Coast. By 1964 he was using again, and she was hiding the money from his occasional gigs in a hole in the wall of their apartment to keep him from buying heroin with it. Donald Ray Lymon Sep. 6, 1964 - Jan. 23, 2023 Lie in State Fri. 1/27/23, 4-8pm at Small's Mortuary. 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