Published: November 13, 2008 12:05 am      

ENTERTAINMENT: Swan song for a local icon

On a recent Tuesday night in October, Marilyn Mann stepped to the microphone at Crazy Jake’s in North Tonawanda, looked out into the crowd and waved to the many friends gathered throughout the restaurant and lounge to see her sing.

To them, it was just another night watching Mann entertain, something she’s perfected over a more than four-decade-long career. But near the end of the show, Mann dropped a bomb. “I have an announcement to make,” she said, according to her longtime friend Rich Ryan, who was there that night. “I am officially retiring from show business.” The crowd was stunned.

Only a few of Mann’s closest friends knew that she had planned on making such an announcement. To everyone else, it was a complete surprise. “She’s stunned everybody with her announcement,” said Jim Fingerlow, who manages the restaurant at Crazy Jake’s. Before that, he owned the Frog Grill in the City of Tonawanda, where Mann sang for a few years until the restaurant closed last winter.

“She was the Frog Grill,” Fingerlow said. “She could go table to table and know everybody.” And she never had a problem saying hello to a friend while singing. “I like to talk,” Mann said. “So somebody comes in, I say ‘Hey!’ And the next thing I know, I’ve lost two bars of ‘New York, New York.’”

But that’s what made Mann so special on stage. “She was an entertainer,” Fingerlow said. “She’s an icon. There isn’t a person she doesn’t know.”

That Mann had such a long, successful career surprised her as much as her retirement has surprised her fans.

It all began one night in 1964. Mann was attending a bowling banquet when she approached a musician at Sully’s, a club at the corner of Niagara and Vulcan streets in Buffalo’s Riverside neighborhood, just down the road from where she lived at the time. “I asked the guy if I could sing a song with him,” Mann recalls. “He said, ‘Where do you sing?’ And I said, ‘In the basement, washing diapers.’”

Mann, whose married name is Semanski, was 32 at the time and had spent her time up to that point working in the office of her husband Joe’s countertop business. But with five children to care for during the day, Mann figured she could sing in the evenings.

She did pretty well in her audition and caught the attention of Jean Le Van, the club’s regular Friday and Saturday night singer. Mann’s big break came when Le Van asked her to fill in for her. There was one problem, though—Mann didn’t have a gown or fancy jewelry, necessities for any lounge singer.

Le Van let her borrow a gown, helped Mann with her make up, and even taught her how to play the cocktail drum. And then she told Mann something that would change her life forever. “She dressed me up and said, ‘You’ve got a nice voice, you can do this.’”

At Le Van’s wake this past summer, Mann recalled how much that night meant to her. “I said you don’t realize the influence one woman can have on the rest of your life. It was just one person that made a difference for all these years,” Mann said.

In the 44 years since that night at Sully’s, Mann, 76, has sung at dozens of clubs across the Northtowns, many of which are now either closed or have changed names—there’s the Red Lobster club in the Town of Tonawanda, Bedell’s Candlelight Lounge in the City of Tonawanda, 7 Wonders, Ship ‘N Shore, and many more. It’s a career Mann never imagined having, even though she came from a musical family.

As a child, Mann would sing country western songs with her aunt and uncle at family gatherings. One of her favorite artists was Hank Williams. “I always loved to sing. I never thought I would do it professionally,” Mann said. “Just the fact that I was singing and getting paid—holy cripe—it was incredible.”

Shortly before the Frog Grill closed last winter, Mann became stricken with pneumonia, forcing her to turn off the mic for a while. She even missed New Year’s Eve. “I had ginger ale at Kenmore Mercy Hospital at midnight,” she said. It got her to thinking that it might be time to give up showbiz.

But another gig would arise, this time at the newly-opened Crazy Jake’s. Mann says her “light bulb moment” came a few months ago when she was performing there on a Tuesday evening.

During a break in the show, a waitress told Mann that two ladies wanted to talk to her, so Mann obliged. “They said Marilyn, you look great,” Mann said. Then came the kicker. One of the women said her parents frequently took her to the Red Lobster to see Mann perform. Mann felt she had been doing it long enough.

“I know I could if I wanted to,” she said. “But when is it time to stop? Mentally, I don’t feel like I’m ready. Physically, I have my moments.” Despite knowing that she can still entertain with the best of them, Mann said she doesn’t want to be a “once-a-monther.” While she may still do occasional appearances, her last scheduled gig is next month, when she’ll sing at the Amherst Senior Citizens Christmas party.

Reflecting on her career, Mann said that hearing people thank her for providing such great memories is what enabled her to sing for so many years.

But that night at Crazy Jake’s, when she announced her retirement, “It just felt right,” she said, adding that it was not an easy decision.

“I guess I’m going out the way I came in — a surprise.”

Contact reporter David J. Hill at 693-1000, ext. 115.