Admin’s Note: This movie tells a story about Frankie Lymon’s life and death. It also gives us a better understandnig on Zola Taylor (1938 – 2007), the female member from The Platters. It showed young Little Richard when he was starting out. The movie fed my need to know more.
Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998) is an American romantic drama, directed by Gregory Nava. The screenplay was written by Tina Andrews. The film stars Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox, Lela Rochon and Larenz Tate.
The motion picture is a biographical film of the brief but intense life of R&B/Rock & Roll singer Frankie Lymon, who was part of the R&B group Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers for one year. Moreover, the film highlights the three women in his life.
Movie Plot
Lymon was thirteen years old when the teenage group Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers erupted from radios and jukeboxes with their 1956 hit, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" and appeared in the movie Rock, Rock, Rock (1956).
After Mr. Rock and Roll (1957), Lymon started a solo singing career, but it all fell apart. Lymon’s career was over by the time he was eighteen years old, and he died of a heroin overdose seven years later.
Jumping from the 1950s to the 1980s, the film traces the rise and fall of Lymon in a series of flashbacks as courtroom claims on Lymon’s royalties are outlined by three women: Zola Taylor of the Platters, Elizabeth Waters , and schoolteacher Emira Eagle.
Why do fools fall in love – movie trailer
Franklin Joseph "Frankie" Lymon (September 30, 1942 – February 27, 1968) was an American rock and roll/rhythm and blues singer and songwriter, best known as the boy soprano lead singer of a New York City-based early rock and roll group, The Teenagers. The group was composed of five boys, all in their early to mid teens. The original lineup of the Teenagers, an integrated group, included three African American members, Frankie Lymon, Jimmy Merchant and Sherman Garnes, and two Puerto Rican members, Herman Santiago and Joe Negroni.
The Teenagers’ first single, 1956’s "Why Do Fools Fall in Love", was also their biggest hit. After Lymon went solo in mid-1957, both his career and those of the Teenagers fell into decline. By age 25, he was found dead in his grandmother’s bathroom from a heroin overdose.
Zola Taylor (March 17, 1938 – April 30, 2007) was an American singer. She was the only female member of The Platters from 1954 to 1962, when the group produced most of their popular singles.
Taylor was the second of Frankie Lymon’s three wives. In 1984, on behalf of Emira Lymon, a lawyer and artist’s agent sued to wrest the copyright of Frankie’s hit song "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" away from the current owner. The case became confused when it looked like Lymon had a second and possibly a third widow. Elizabeth Waters claimed to have married Lymon in 1964 in Maryland. However, it turned out she had been married to someone else at the time.
Zola Taylor claimed to have married Lymon in Mexicali, Mexico around 1965, but could not produce a marriage license. The first hearing, held in Philadelphia, was decided in favor of Waters being Lymon’s first wife. Emira Eagle, his third wife, appealed and won a reversal based on her claim that she was Lymon’s first wife.
In 1990, Taylor was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Platters.
Death of Zola Taylor
Taylor was retired from the music business when she died in Los Angeles at age 69, from pneumonia, following a series of strokes.