When Smith was 11 years old, she sang regularly as a cast member of
The Joe Brown Radio Gang program on a Norfolk station. At age 14, Smith sang with a naval air station band led by
Saxie Dowell. At 15, she got her first paying job with the Earl Bennett band. She saw
Louis Prima perform in New York City in 1949. Their songs included
Johnny Mercer's and
Harold Arlen's "
That Old Black Magic", which was a Top 20 hit in the US in 1958. At the
1st Annual Grammy Awards in 1959, Smith and Prima won the first Grammy for
Best Performance by a Vocal Group or Chorus for "That Old Black Magic". Her
deadpan act was popular with fans. The duo followed up with the minor successes "
I've Got You Under My Skin" and "
Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen", a cover of the
1937 Andrews Sisters hit. Smith and Prima's act was a mainstay of the Las Vegas lounge scene for much of the 1950s. Smith was caricatured as "Squealy Smith" in
Bob Clampett's 1960
Beany and Cecil episode "So What and the Seven Whatnots", a
Snow White spoof in a Vegas setting, though her actual voice was not used. Smith appeared with Prima in the movie
Hey Boy! Hey Girl!, singing "
Fever", and also appeared in and sang on the soundtrack of the previous year's film
Thunder Road. Her song in
Thunder Road was "Whippoorwill". She also appeared in the film
Senior Prom. In 1965, she had Top 20 hits in the United Kingdom with an album of
Beatles compositions,
Keely Smith Sings The John Lennon—Paul McCartney Songbook, and a single, "
You're Breaking My Heart", which reached No. 14 in April. She returned to singing in 1985, recording the album ''I'm in Love Again
with Bud Shank, Bill Perkins and Bob Cooper. Her albums, Swing, Swing, Swing
(2000), Keely Sings Sinatra
(2001) for which she received a Grammy nomination, and Keely Swings Basie-Style With Strings'' (2002) won critical and popular acclaim. In 2008, she performed a duet with
Kid Rock during the 50th Grammy Awards on "That Old Black Magic". Smith earned positive reviews for her performances at Feinstein's nightclub in Manhattan in 2005. Said
Variety: "Smith's bold, dark voice took firm hold on a handful of great standard tunes, and she swung hard", and
The New Yorker called her "both legendary and underrated ... She can still sing the stuffing out of a ballad as well as swing any tune into the stratosphere." According to a news release from her publicist issued upon her death, Smith was "very resolute in being in control of the trajectory of her career". "Nobody will ever interfere with what I do on stage", Smith once told
Theatermania. "Someone might have an opinion of something but, if I disagree with it, I'll go with my own thinking. I'm just a plain person. I sing like I talk — and, when I'm on stage, I talk just like I'm talking to you." Smith's final performance was on February 13, 2011, at the Cerritos Performing Arts Center in Southern California. ==Personal life==