The voice, like wind through sugar cane, first rustled into U.S. living rooms last year singing "Now it's a Pepsi . . . for those who think young." Joanie Sommers, owner of the voice, has come a long way since those anonymous days, has already earned her first quarter-million dollars (and her first ulcer) at the age of 20. Says she: "I'm a worrywart. I'm tired and I ponder about being tired."
At the age of ten, Joanie Drost (her real name) won a prize on a Buffalo TV show singing Your Cheating Heart, largely because (she says) her numerous relatives bought piles of postcards and stuffed the ballot box by mail. Four years later her family emigrated to California. She recalls: "It was a miracle. We didn't have a flat until we were sitting in a gas station in California. We had $1.62 left."
Joanie's early career is like a clip from an old Judy Garland movie. She sang and sang—with the jukebox in the tavern where her mother worked, with the Venice (Calif.) High School dance band, with a harmony group for the Elks Club. Finally came the Big Audition—with Tommy Oliver's band at the Deauville country club in Santa Monica, and the Big Click. A demonstration disk played for Warner Bros. record company resulted in her first album, Positively the Most, a title artfully designed to rhyme with Drost. But Joanie had already decided the Drost was dross as far as names went, tried out Joan St. Clair, Joanie Post, and finally decided—for no particular reason—on Joanie Sommers. Says she: "I can't think of myself as anybody else now, even if I try."
The album and Joanie's haunted-hoarse voice, became pets of disk jockeys everywhere. A refreshing change from the smoldering young sirens whose singing style tries to suggest that they are capable of unseemly passion, Joanie sounds throaty but relaxed, is admired both by rock 'n' rollers (for whom she steadfastly refuses to rock) as well as by those who pant for Ella and Frankie. Mort Sahl heard the records, took a look at gamin-faced Joanie, signed her up to accompany him on a 35-city concert tour. Suddenly everybody wants Joanie. She has just made a movie with Mickey Rooney (Columbia's Everything's Ducky), is eagerly sought for TV specials, has nightclub engagements booked solidly for the next six months.
Next week Joanie Sommers opens at Las Vegas' super-caravansary, the Sahara, with Donald O'Connor and a $15,000 wardrobe—a handy index to the high cost of converting a cute girl who sings nicely into a major attraction. Two years ago, she played her first club date in a $2.98 ready-to-wear.