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WE REMEMBER PLATTERS SINGER ZOLA TAYLOR: Halle Berry portrayed the group’s lone female member in “Why Do Fools Fall in Love.”
*Zola Taylor, the lone female singer in 50s group “The Platters,” has died in Riverside County, Calif. from complications of pneumonia, her nephew, Alfie Robinson, told AP Tuesday. She was 69.
Taylor was also among the three women who claimed to be pop idol Frankie Lymon's widow. Halle Berry portrayed Taylor in the 1998 movie about the court battle, titled “Why Do Fools Fall in Love.”
The singer, who harmonized with the Platters on such hits as “The Great Pretender,” had been bedridden following several strokes and died at Parkview Community Hospital.
It was founding Platters member Herb Reed who recruited Taylor, the sister of Cornell Gunter of the Coasters, after catching her rehearsing with a girl group in 1955. He said she had the charisma and vocal chops the R&B group needed.
The all-male outfit had just signed with Mercury after their single "Only You" became a No. 1 hit and their manager thought a female voice would be the perfect addition to soften their sound.
"She was a very pretty young lady and what a great, great smile," Reed told The Associated Press. "And she had this baby voice that everyone liked. …We were the first Afro-American group to have a girl singer. That was the talk of the nation. All of the sudden, other groups started looking for girls."
The beginning of the end for the Platters came just after 1959 when four of the male members were arrested in Cincinnati. Reed said he had been out of touch with Taylor since the early 1960s.
In the 1980s, Taylor and two other women all claimed to be Lymon's widow and fought over his royalties. Lymon, a 50s teen hearthrob with such hits as "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?," had died of a drug overdose in 1968 at age 25. The courts eventually sided with one of the other women.
Robinson, Taylor's closest known living relative, said his aunt continued touring with other lesser-known acts until 1996 and wed two other times. Her last husband died in 1982, he said. She had no children.
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