Lucia Pamela (May 1, 1904 in St Louis, Missouri – July 25, 2002, Los Angeles, California) was an American musician, bandleader, and eccentric. She is remembered today largely for an album and coloring book concerning an imaginary trip to the moon.
Pamela studied at the "Beethoven Conservatory of Music and Voice" in Germany. She joined Flo Ziegfeld's "Broadway Follies" after her return to America. She was voted Miss St. Louis in 1926.
She was featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not for memorizing a record 10,000 songs. She led the all-girl orchestra and Odeon Theatre house band the Musical Pirates, said by some to be the first all-female orchestra, and hosted radio programs including The Encouragement Hour, Kansas City, and Gal About Town, Fresno.
She produced only one album, Into Outer Space With Lucia Pamela (circa 1969, Gulfstream and later on L'Peg), whose songs are mostly about an imaginary trip to the moon. The song "Flip Flop Fly" was featured on the radio by Bob and Ray in 1973, but the album was all but forgotten before being reissued in 1992 (record label: Arf! Arf!, recorded from a vinyl source and produced by Irwin Chusid) to greater acclaim.
She also produced a cartoon coloring book, Into Outer Space with Lucia Pamela in the Year 2000. In 1994, the pop group Stereolab recorded a tribute to her, "International Colouring Contest", on their album Mars Audiac Quintet; the intro of the song includes a voice sample of Pamela herself .
She died in 2002, age 98, in Los Angeles.
Later that year, Tony Kushner wrote a short play about Lucia Pamela called "Flip Flop Fly." The play imagines Pamela meeting Queen Geraldine of Albania (who also died in 2002) on the moon.
Read more about Lucia Pamela: Family