GREAT FEMALE SINGERS: Joey Heatherton

Here are several standards performed by the very glamorous Joey Heatherton, gifted with an incredible, terrific voice, a blend of Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland!

Davenie Johanna "Joey" Heatherton (born in 1944) is an American actress, dancer, and singer.

She was born and raised in Rockville Centre, New York, a suburb of New York City. She was nicknamed "Joey" as a child, a combination of her first name Davenie and her middle name Johanna. Her father, Ray Heatherton, was a Broadway star (Babes in Arms) and television pioneer. Her mother, also named Davenie, was a dancer.

Heatherton began her career as a child actress. She first appeared on television on her father's show The Merry Mailman, a popular children's show in New York. At the age of 13, she was a member of the ensemble and an understudy in the original Broadway production of The Sound of Music, and received her first sustained national exposure that same year as a semi-regular on The Perry Como Show, playing an exuberant teenager with a perpetual crush on Perry Como. She also appeared extensively on The Dean Martin Show; Dean Martin invited her to perform numerous times on the show, starting with the premiere episode of September 16, 1965. From June to September 1968, along with Frank Sinatra, Jr., she co-hosted Martin's summer substitute musical comedy hour, Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers. She also made multiple appearances on 1960s television shows such as The Andy Williams Show, The Hollywood Palace, The Mike Douglas Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, and This Is Tom Jones.

In 1964, she appeared on The Tonight Show, where she coached Johnny Carson on the finer points of dancing "The Frug." During that era, she also appeared in Bob Hope's USO troupe between 1965 and 1977, entertaining the GIs with her singing, dancing and provocative outfits. Excerpts from the USO tours were televised as part of Hope's long-running series of NBC monthly specials, culminating in the top-rated Christmas shows, where Heatherton's segments were regularly featured.

Throughout the 1960s, Heatherton interspersed her variety-show appearances with dramatic turns in three theatrical films and on numerous episodes of series such as Route 66 (playing a 15-year-old temptress in the November 18, 1960 teleplay), Mr. Novak, The Virginian, and The Nurses.

Heatherton also appeared in the movies Twilight of Honor (1963), Where Love Has Gone (1964) and My Blood Runs Cold. The only one of the three films to be made in color, 1964's Where Love Has Gone, was a big-budget melodrama based on Harold Robbins' roman à clef about the scandalous Lana Turner–Cheryl Crane–Johnny Stompanato manslaughter case, with Heatherton playing the daughter of the Turner character (Susan Hayward). In 1964, Heatherton co-starred in My Blood Runs Cold, the second of three 1965 horror-suspense films directed by William Conrad, alongside Troy Donahue.

The following year, she appeared in a two-part episode of I Spy with Robert Culp and Bill Cosby, playing a girl who returns an original Leonardo da Vinci painting to a Roman museum.

In 1972, Heatherton released her first album The Joey Heatherton Album. The first single, a cover of the 1957 Ferlin Husky song "Gone", spent 15 weeks on the Billboard's Hot 100, peaking at #24. The second single, "I'm Sorry", peaked at #87.

By the 1970s, Heatherton's career was slowing down, but she was still popular enough to do a series of television ads for RC Cola and Serta Mattresses. A brief high point came in July 1975, when she headlined Joey & Dad, a four-week Sunday night summer replacement series for Cher's 1975-76 variety show in which she performed alongside her own father. Each episode would involve Ray Heatherton waxing nostalgic over life with his daughter while rooting through his attic.

In subsequent years, Heatherton performed in Las Vegas (at The Sahara with Tony Bennett or at Caesar’s Palace with Frank Sinatra; she also performed in many nightclubs such as The Persian Room at The Plaza, The Empire Room at The Waldorf-Astoria) and acted in a few television shows and films, including the 1972 thriller Bluebeard (with Richard Burton in the title role). Additionally, she played the starring role as Xaviera Hollander in 1977's Watergate-inspired The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington. In 1990, Heatherton returned to the screen with a small role as a religious fanatic in John Waters' teen musical comedy film Cry-Baby. In 1997, Heatherton appeared nude in an issue of Playboy. Her most recent acting role was in the 2002 Damon Packard film Reflections of Evil.

Enjoy Joey Heatherton’s beauty and flamboyant dynamic style!