- During her years recording for MGM records, she sold over a 100 million records.
- Sang the chart-topping tune "Why Don't You Believe Me" which debuted on 18 October 1952. The 45 remained at the top of the American charts for six weeks.
- Sang two songs that went to No. 2 on the American Top 40 list - "Your Cheatin' Heart" in 1953 and "How Important Can It Be" in 1955.
- Had 15 recordings which cracked the Top 40 charts in the United States
- Joni James and Sonny James were awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6630 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
- She was also very popular across parts of the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in the Philippines where she performed at Manila's now defunct EM Club in 1957.
- James married composer-conductor Anthony "Tony" Acquaviva at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York in 1956.
- Some executives at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) spotted her in a television commercial, and she was signed by MGM in 1952.
- Ames performed at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, and was one of the first "city ladies" to perform there. She appeared there on three additional occasions.
- In October 2001, just a few weeks after 9/11, she appeared at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, accompanied by the Count Basie orchestra. The streets of the city were still lined with armed soldiers, and she was a guest of honor at the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Tribute to Barbra Streisand.
- She has sold more than 100 million records and recorded more than 25 albums.
- She also scored a big hit in Manila with Filipino composer Salvador Asuncion's work titled "In Despair".
- She was the first American to record at London's Abbey Road Studios, and recorded five albums there.
- Her first hit, "Why Don't You Believe Me?",[1] sold over two million copies.
- As an adolescent, she studied drama and ballet, and on graduating from Bowen High School, located in the South Chicago neighborhood, went with a local dance group on a tour of Canada. She then took a job as a chorus girl in the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago.
- Joni James has a voice that is crystal clear and carries a melancholy sound deep within it. She has perfect pitch which grew out of the frequent singing of Gregorian chants.
- Country singer Conway Twitty was such a big fan of her, he named his daughter after James.
- For many years she was out of the public eye, but began touring again in the mid-1990s some years after she was widowed, performing memorable concerts at New York's Town Hall, Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall.
- James was not yet five years old when her father died of cancer at the age of 36, leaving his wife five months pregnant.
- She became one of the very first popular singers to take country hits and help them make their transition to popular music, including such Hank Williams hits as "Your Cheatin' Heart" and "Cold, Cold Heart." James and Williams were scheduled to sing together; the night he died, she was at MGM studios recording "Your Cheatin' Heart.".
- She was born to an Italian-American family, one of six children supported by her widowed mother.
- After doing a fill-in in Indiana, she decided to pursue a singing career.
- In 1964, she retired from the music industry in part because her husband Tony Acquaviva was in bad health and needed her attention. She cared for him until his death in 1986.
- With her renewed popularity, nearly her entire body of work was released on the Capitol-EMI, DRG and Taragon labels under her personal supervision and, in 2000, she released a new recording, Latest and Greatest.
- Shortly after her first husband's death, James met retired Air Force General Bernard Adolph Schriever, two decades her senior. The couple wed on October 5, 1997, in Arlington, Virginia.
- Her second husband Bernard Schriever was a retired Air Force general who shepherded the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile program and established a framework for the Air Force's space program.
- Narried in 1956 at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York.
- Her name appeared in two Peanuts cartoons, Charles Schulz was a big fan.
- She performed "Let There Be Love" on WGN-TV accompanied by pianist Johnny Ray and was signed by Lew Douglas of MGM Records.
- At the 1960 Academy Awards, she performed the Oscar-nominated song "The Five Pennies," sung by Danny Kaye in the Paramount film.
- Adopted two children from Italy, Michael and Angela.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content