Monica Lewis

Monica Lewis was a jazz singer and actress from the United States whose career spanned radio, recordings, Broadway, television, and movies. Born in Chicago in 1922, she studied voice with her mother and began singing on radio after an audition with WMCA led to her own program. She later co-starred on The Chesterfield Supper Club, won a Broadway role in Johnny 2X4, and in 1943 joined Benny Goodman's orchestra as a singer. She recorded for labels including Signature, MGM, Decca, Capitol, and Verve, and from 1947 to 1961 she provided the singing voice for the Chiquita Banana cartoon campaign. Signed by MGM in 1950, she appeared in films such as The Strip (1951), Earthquake (1974), and The Concorde... Airport '79 (1979), and worked in television action series. She resumed club singing in the 1980s and 1990s and died in 2015.