Morgana King

Morgana King was an American jazz singer and actress.

Her professional singing career began at age sixteen. When she sang in a Greenwich Village nightclub in 1953, a record label executive took interest after being impressed with her unique phrasing and multi-octave range. Three years later in 1956, her first album, For You, For Me, For Evermore, was released.

King went on to release numerous albums and perform in Las Vegas and around the country, as well as on television on The Tonight Show, Playboy After Dark and The Hollywood Palace and on programs hosted by Andy Williams, Danny Kaye, Pat Boone, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop and Mike Douglas.

King appeared in a handful of acting roles in movies and on television, most notably in The Godfather, in which she appeared as Carmela Corleone, the wife of Marlon Brando’s Don Vito Corleone. She reprised her role in The Godfather: Part II, in which her character dies.

She continued to perform in clubs and concerts and appeared on variety shows. Her last public performance was in 2000.

King died March 22, 2018, in Palm Springs, California. She was 87.