"Little Anthony of the Legendary Little Anthony and the Imperials"

Yes, I am alive and well, and living in Rancho Palos Verdes California. My name is Jerome Anthony Gourdine, but you know me as Lil Anthony of Little Anthony and The Imperials.

I was born in 1941 in New York City and presided in Brooklyn for thirty years of my life. My Mother and Father were musicians and my three brothers were also involved in music. My Mother sang gospel with her sisters. The name of the group was the Nazareth Baptist singers. My father played saxophone (tenor, alto). He played with the Sinclair Orchestra and the Buddy Johnson Orchestra. He also worked as an electrician at the Brooklyn Navy yard during the Second World War. We all lived in the Fort Green Project Complex run by the United States Government for its Navy yard workers.

I attended my formal years in school at Public School 67 Elementary School. This is where I became acquainted with Mrs. Ethel Mannix who was my music and arts teacher from the sixth through the 8^th grade. She was very influential in my knowledge of all forms of music which is known as music appreciation.

I met Clarence Collins and Ernest Wright as a youngster. Clarence had formed a singing group called the Chesters. The other members of the group were Tracy Lord, Nathaniel Rodgers, and Ronald Ross. Clarence was looking for a lead singer, which I soon became. The year was 1957. We signed a recording contract with Gone and End records. The president was George Goldner and his A & R man was Richard Barrett. Richard had already introduced groups like Frankie Lyman and The Teenagers, The Chantels and the Dubs, and Flamingos.

Our group was renamed the Imperials and came out with our very first hit record, Tears on My Pillow, which was a top ten hit. This was the beginning of a long and illustrious career. We then for a brief period dissolved from 1961 for two and a half years. In 1964 we met Mr. Ernie Martinelli, who agreed to manage the Imperials if I were with the group again. I agreed to it and we resumed where we had left off. In 1964, Ernie met a gentleman by the name of Teddy Randazzo, whom he had been acquainted with before. He was in partnership with Don Costa; one of America's most prolific music arranger. They were starting an independent record company. It was known as D.C. P. Records. This association produced some of the best music of the middle sixties. It was a time that produced such illustrious performers as the Beatles, Dion Warwick, Motown and the Drifters.

We were extremely successful in our recording adventures. Songs like, Outside Looking In, Goin out of my Head, Hurt So Bad, Take Me Back and others from 1964 through 1967 were extremely successful. We performed at places like Lincoln Center in New York, with Dion Warwick, Burt Bacherach, and conducting for us Teddy Randazzo, the Ed Sullivan Show, the Craft Music Hall television show, Dick Clark specials, etc.

In 1969, Ernest Wright left the group to pursue his own career, followed by Sammy Strain in 1972. They were replaced by Bobby Wade and Harold Jenkins until 1975 when I decided I had enough and wanted to expand my talent as a solo. As a child I was an actor and decided to pursue that part of my talent as well. I was reasonably successful. I had study with quite a few teachers and schools. But one special teacher help to mold me into a very good actor. His name was David Alexander, who had a profound influence on me. He had worked with and taught such people as Jack Lemon, and many others. I appeared in commercials and did television shows, (The Jefferson's, Kingston Confidential). I performed in the movie Contact 303 with Heny Fonda, Billy D Williams, and Chad Everett. I also did plays like Sistuh's at the L.A. Actors Theater, Are You Looking, with Ed Harris and Helen Shaffer, and Come Back America. In my acting profession I was simply known as Anthony Gourdine, my real name. For sixteen years, I sang solo as Little Anthony and acted as Anthony Gourdine and was fairly successful.

In 1978 I had a profound experience that turned my life around. I became a Born Again Christian. I recorded a Christian Album in 1979 called Daylight. I was introduced to many fine Christian believers, also Evangelist, and Pastors. I have appeared on the Praise the Lord television show (TBN) on numerous occasions and will appear again.

In 1991, a gentleman by the name of Dick Fox, (an agent from N.Y. C. who was promoting a special concert at Madison Square Gardens called the Legends) asks me if it was possible to reunite the Imperials for this special engagement. I agreed to it and commenced to contact the individual Imperials. I located Clarence Collins in Las Vegas. He agreed and located Ernest Wright in Europe. Sammy Strain was a member of the famous RB group the O'Jays, he contacted me because he had heard about the concert. This was the beginning of the reconstruction of Little Anthony and the Original Imperials. We have been together ever since.

I was married very young (1961) to Judy Fouseca. We had two children, Andre and Tony. We divorced in 1963 after two years of marriage. We came together again in 1964 and we were remarried in 1967. We then bought a house in Baldwin Hills, New York. We lived there from 1969 to 1971, we then moved to Los Angeles, CA. I also had two other children, Antoinette and Liza Gourdine. In 1974 I was again divorced from Judy. It was during this same year, 1974, I met my present wife of 24 years, Linda. Linda has been a teacher for the last 26 years and also is the advisor for the Cheer, Drill, and Dance squads at Dodson Middle School.  I have eight grand children and one great grand child. I have been very blessed by God by my children. My oldest son Andre, is recording engineer, my son Tony is a sports Agent with several clients in the NFL. My oldest daughter Antoinette is a nurse's aid with senior citizens. My daughter Liza is living and working in Orlando, Florida where she resides with her three children and husband Tony. My Daughter Sarah is now attending El Camino College in Los Angeles. My Son Damon just began his first year as a NFL player with the San Diego Chargers. My Son Casey attends San Diego State College. And my youngest Son Daniel attends San Diego State College and also plays football for them with hopes to join his brother Damon one day in the NFL or to become an actor.

I have currently completed a new album, which I produced, and wrote several songs on the album. We are now in the process of shopping it. My dream is to place the CD and continue writing music and returning to the legitimate stage. I am also in the process of producing my three sons��, Casey, Damon, Daniel, and a friend Derek, as a new young group knows as Gifted.

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