Personality
Louis Prima’s personality varied at times. To the record companies and big corporations, he showed little sympathy and was defiant in settling for an adequate salary. He wanted as much as he could get out of these corporations. For instance, Warner Brothers offered him $60,000 to be in a movie on Helen Morgan’s life. He rejected the offer, and when Warner Brothers increased to 75,000, it still was not enough. He wanted $100,000 and control of his role, which was rejected by Warner Brothers. He had further disputes with Strand Theatre in New York and Majestic Records. He also did not allow a former songwriter to advertise herself as “formerly featured with Louis Prima’s orchestra”.
To his family, friends, and fans Prima was a much different person. He was very patient with fans and always autographed or took pictures with them. He also became a fatherly figure for Barbara Belle, a songwriter and secretary for Louis. On stage, he was a natural performer. He sold himself to the audience by creating shows that were funny, happy, and extremely entertaining.
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Famous quotes containing the word personality:
“But most of us are apt to settle within ourselves that the man who blocks our way is odious, and not to mind causing him a little of the disgust which his personality excites in ourselves.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“What we ought to see in the agonies of puberty is the result of the conditioning that maims the female personality in creating the feminine.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“Unable to create a meaningful life for itself, the personality takes its own revenge: from the lower depths comes a regressive form of spontaneity: raw animality forms a counterpoise to the meaningless stimuli and the vicarious life to which the ordinary man is conditioned. Getting spiritual nourishment from this chaos of events, sensations, and devious interpretations is the equivalent of trying to pick through a garbage pile for food.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)