During this time she was busy touring with Davis as a singer and dancer, making films in Italy, and reprising her role in Golden Boy during its revival in London. She was a showgirl for Saturday night main TV show Sabato sera, next to acclaimed singer Mina. In Italy she learned to speak fluent Italian while starring in three movies, the first of which was considered a Spaghetti Western. Lola Falana became a major star of Italian television, from 1966, and cinema, beginning in 1967. In 1966, Davis cast Falana, along with himself, Ossie Davis, and Cicely Tyson, in her first film role, in A Man Called Adam. In the late 1960s, Falana was mentored by Sammy Davis, Jr. Later in her career, she recorded under Frank Sinatra's record label. Her first single, "My Baby", was recorded and released for Mercury Records in 1965. After the musical, Falana launched her music career later in 1964. While dancing in a chorus line in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Falana was discovered by Sammy Davis Jr., who gave her a featured role in his 1964 Broadway musical Golden Boy. Washington, dubbed the "Queen of Blues", was influential in fostering Falana's early career. In 1958, Lola Falana's first dancing gig was at age sixteen during a Dinah Washington nightclub appearance in Philadelphia in which Washington gave her the opening act slot to perform. Pursuing a musical career became so important to her that, against her parents' wishes, she dropped out of Germantown High School a few months before graduation and moved to New York City. In the period she was in junior high school, Falana was already dancing in nightclubs to which she was escorted by her mother. In 1952, Falana's family, which by this time included two more siblings, moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By the age of three Lola Falana was dancing, and by age five she was singing in the church choir. Marine Corps, later becoming a welder shortly after meeting Falana's mother, who was African-American. Lola Falana's father, an Afro-Cuban, left his homeland of Cuba to serve in the U.S. She was the third of six children born to Bennett, a welder and Cleo Falana, a seamstress (1921–2010). Lola Falana was born in Camden, New Jersey.
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