JOYCE Kollbaum’s life story includes singing with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Pat Boone and Chubby Checker in Las Vegas.
A high soprano, the 75-year-old spent her youth as a back-up singer for some of the star musicians of the late 1960s and 1970s.
She also met Elvis Presley several times, sang at an event for Ronald Reagan and stood up to Frank Sinatra when he claimed she was not hitting the right notes.
Now a resident at Aveo’s Cleveland Gardens, Ms Kollbaum was born in 1940 in Cincinnatti, Ohio and was about six years old when she met her first celebrity, Doris Day.
She went with her grandfather who was painting a house that belonged to the singer. Even at that age Ms Kollbaum was familiar with famous musicians and their songs.
“My mother always had a record player going,” she said.
While the family moved extensively, Ms Kollbaum sang and danced her way through her childhood.
“I tap-danced, twirled a baton, sang and played the accordion. I learned to play the piano and sang in choirs,” she said.
She married a church song-leader at 18 and they moved to Las Vegas where they met Pat and Shirley Boone.
Invited to be a back-up singer for Mr Boone, Ms Kollbaum sang for several of his albums.
She also auditioned successfully to sing for Bobby Darin, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Wayne Newton, Chubby Checker and Frank Sinatra.
“Some singers, like Elvis Presley, brought their own back-up so we didn’t get to audition for them,” she said.
When Sinatra said she was not hitting the high notes, Ms Kollbaum said she objected.
“I grabbed my purse and stormed down to him and Sammy Davis in the front row.
“I put my hands on my hips and said, ‘When you learn to read music you can tell me how to sing’,” she said.
Davis later stood up for her and Sinatra allowed her back.
After she and her first husband divorced, Ms Kollbaum took up nursing but continued to sing.
She met Ronald and Nancy Reagan as a volunteer and sang America the Beautiful at an electoral rally.
As a single mother of three adopted children, Ms Kollbaum declined an invitation to President Reagan’s inaugural ball because she could not afford the cost.
He later wrote to her saying he would have paid if he had known.
In 2000 she met an Australian Charles Kollbaum online.
They married and moved to Boonah where she was known as ‘The Yank’ and hosted a radio show.
Mr Kollbaum died of motor neuron disease in 2006, and a few years later Ms Kollbaum met Kevin Turvey and moved to Ormiston.
Having sung for retirement villages and to raise money for causes until 18 months ago, Ms Kollbaum has been diagnosed with a heart condition that put an end to her singing.
Although saddened that she can no longer sing, Ms Kollbaum said her life was full of interesting experiences.
