How is lola falana

Sign In. Edit Lola Falana. Showing all 16 items. Wore a famous silk white evening gown during her Las Vegas shows. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the s.

After a brief period of apparent remission, the disease returned in She retired to her parents' home in Philadelphia. A decade later, she had recovered sufficiently to return to live in Las Vegas. In later years she has turned to religion for comfort and solace, touring much of the time as an evangelist.

Her family later moved to Philadelphia. And it was in one such place that she was spotted by Sammy Davis Jnr. Hers was a meteoric rise and she admits her friends were amazed by the rapidity of her career. As she said later, 'Some of us singer are better than her, dance better than her, so what is it? A child of the church in Philadelphia, she had dance lessons from the age of three, sang in the gospel choirs and at 17 ran off to New York. When Davis split with his wife May Britt, Falana became his partner for a while, although when Davis rented a suite for her at the Playboy Club in London she invited a friend Altovise Gore to share the place.

Davis was enormously supportive of Falana and there is a striking image of her in his book Photo by Sammy Davis Jnr. Although Lola Falana was just a slight variant on her given name Loletha Falana she would sometimes say she chose the name because she wanted something which reflected the black experience and African culture.

Joey Bishop had her as a regular guest on his television show in the late Sixties and Johnny Carson also was quick to get her onto The Tonight Show where she would sing soul and gospel-inspired songs. She told him that distinctive though her name was people would call her all kinds of variants, like Lollapalooza. She was a star who posed for Playboy, did advertisements and photo shoots, danced and sang, recorded, made movies.

Falana achieved international celebrity by acting and singing in Italian films. Two more Italian films followed in Falana and Davis Jr. They divorced in She began television acting, modeling, and starred in blaxploitation films like The Liberation of L. Jones and Lady Cocoa. She snagged her own variety show, Lola!

She also graced the covers and pages of Jet , Ebony , Sepia and Playboy magazines. In , Falana was struck with multiple sclerosis.