Bandleader Guy Lombardo's legacy kept in SW Fla.

Published: Monday, December 31, 2012 at 4:56 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, December 31, 2012 at 4:56 p.m.















The siblings remember running around the Waldorf Astoria in their pajamas while the band was rehearsing for the New Year's Eve show. "It was not just a television show. It was like a family event," Gina said.


Flood, 83, who has a 3,400-pound bust of Lombardo on his front lawn, fought the closing. He said he knows the historic objects belong to the residents of London, and ultimately the Canadian government. But city officials won't get them back until they can house and display them properly, Flood said.

Gina Lombardo said she knows the city of London had difficult choices to make. The siblings would be willing to give some items on loan to the museum, if it should become a reality again, she said. "I'd love to have it not just in a safe place but in a place they would be appreciated."

They have fond memories and tell great stories about their Uncle Guy, their father, and the band -- Like the Lombardos' friendship with legendary trumpeter Louis Armstrong.

Lombardo first met Armstrong in the 1920s in Chicago, where the orchestra was playing in the Granada Cafe. "They hit it off," Gina said. Lombardo wanted Armstrong to come to the cafe and talk. "He tried to slip Louis in through the kitchen," but the manager stopped them. It was the era of segregation. Lombardo told the manager if Armstrong couldn't come in, the band wouldn't be playing at the cafe anymore. Armstrong stayed.

Armstrong once said "in his band in heaven, dad would play the trumpet," Gina said.


One day gangsters shot up the restaurant, Gina said. "Everybody hit the deck."

But Guy kept singing.

According to Guy's 1964 autobiography, "The Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven," the band was live on the radio at the time. Then five shots rang out, and a scream. Two men were slumped over a table, bleeding, and strolling away across the floor was gangster George Maloney, a revolver in his hand. "It was the first and last time he (Guy) ever sang a number on the air," the autobiography reads.

Andrew Whitmore, a volunteer film archivist at the Library of Congress, just finished a project preserving some of the Lombardo legacy. "I was given a total of nine shipping palettes that were stacked five feet high of different pieces of film, and the film came from various different collections," Whitmore said. "The library didn't even know -- it came in, we are thinking, back in the early 1980s. It had been there for quite some time without inspection. It's no fault of the library. They take in these extremely massive collections. They are the world's largest library, with only a finite number of man hours."

He and a colleague separated the films, inspected them, researched the provenance and cataloged them. They took the best prints and archived them. Now he's interested in seeing what the Lombardos have in storage.

Whitmore, 30, said he also discovered something about himself in working on the films. "I started out just not knowing who he was, and when I finished it, I was a fan."

The siblings agree hard work and humility were behind the band's success. "They were just regular people," Gina said. "They never took themselves too seriously."

The band provided a transition between the music Roaring '20s "flapper" era to the onset of big band, Liz said. Then they provided a bridge once again from Big Band era to the development of rock 'n' roll.

"The main thing is, they were extremely supportive," Carmen said. "They believed you could do anything you set your mind to."

Guy once made a cameo appearance on the '60s comedy TV show "Laugh-In," and said "When I die, I'll take New Year's Eve with me," Gina said. "And for us, he did."


▲ Return to Top