Louis Prima

A common misconception was the Louis Prima died after a 3-year coma, unresponsive and alone with no visitors. The truth is in the spring of 1975, he suffered terribly from severe headaches. Doctors eventually discovered that a benign tumor had taken root near his brain stem. Left untreated, the headaches and seizures would grow worse, and he would die. But surgery, too, was extremely risky, especially given the medical technology of 1975.

Prima opted to take his chances with the surgery. During the procedure, performed at Mount Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles by the same doctor who tried to save Robert Kennedy, a section of Prima’s brain was damaged. He fell into a “waking coma, ” conscious but unresponsive.

“He had his eyes open, and he could hear and see and understand, but he couldn’t respond back, ” Gia said. “He was shut off from any response whatsoever. If you told him to blink once for yes and twice for no, he would just blink, blink, blink.” Six months before he died, Prima finally closed his eyes and whatever tenuous grasp he had on consciousness slipped away. His last wife, Gia, stayed by his side and because he was fed through a tube inserted in his stomach, Louis looked like Louie before he passed away from pneumonia.