If she'd followed her heart instead of her mother's orders, Antonia Figueroa del Sol could have been famous. As it happened, though, she married Ernie from the old neighborhood, moved to Denver and wound up packaging chicken thighs, T-bones and hamburger meat at King Soopers.
Now and then, whenever a certain song plays on the radio, she thinks about her brush with rock-and-roll history and what might have been. She's found herself thinking about it a lot more lately, now that Why Do Fools Fall in Love, the movie about Frankie Lymon and his three wives, is showing all over town.
Believe it or not, she says--and few people know this--she was Frankie Lymon's "best-kept secret, his inspiration. His first inspiration. Then came the wives."
Antonia--"Call me Toni"--is a bubbly 56-year-old with dark twinkling eyes, pencil-thin eyebrows, the remnants of a bouffant hairdo and gold fingernail polish. She's from Brooklyn--"a real New Yorker"; has a twin sister named Dolores--"I'm afraid I have another one like me"; and speaks with an accent as thick as a slice of Sicilian-style pizza with everything on it. "I see it this way," she says. "If the Texans and the Southerners don't lose their accent, why should I?"
On a hazy September morning, we sit at a small, round table in the center of Toni's spare apartment on South Federal Boulevard as if preparing for a seance. Oldies float in from the bedroom radio like incense, and memorabilia including The Teenagers Go Romantic album is spread out before her like tarot cards. "This haunts me," she says. "It really does. Frankie and I could have had more time with each other. Maybe it could have turned out different. Maybe I could have made him happy. I was his first love. The woman he could never have."
Her story begins like this: It's New York City in 1955, the dawn of rock and roll. Toni's uncle, George Goldner, co-owns a number of record labels such as Rama, Chico, Roulette and Gee. Although Goldner is known for pushing Latin acts like Tito Puente, he's also among the first to sign early black doo-wop singers.
One afternoon, one such singer, Richard Barrett of the Valentines, brings Goldner a quintet of school friends from Harlem. The kids had gathered under Barrett's window and performed; they call themselves the Premiers. But Goldner is less than impressed. "They're just children," he says. "I can't deal with schooling and everything like that."
Barrett is persistent, though, and Goldner eventually gives them a chance. On the day the Premiers are set to audition, Herman Santiago, the lead singer, develops laryngitis. "So," Toni recalls, "George says to Little Frankie, 'Little Frankie, can you sing the song?' And Little Frankie says, 'Yeah, I can sing the song.' 'Okay. Sing the song.' So Little Frankie sings, 'Oooo wah. Oooo wah.' And George and Richard say, 'He's the new lead singer.'"
That night, Goldner returns home to his wife, Gracie, and skims the lyrics to "Why Do Fools Fall in Love." He reads them a few times and says, "Forget about it," then tosses the paper in the trash.
But Gracie, who has her own nose for talent, fishes the paper from the wastebasket. "Now, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me see here. Hey. This is a hit. Get these boys into the studio and record them."
"You think so?"
"Yeah. Go for it."
So Goldner gets the boys in the studio and records them. The Premiers had become Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" hits number one on the R&B charts, number six on the pop charts and number one in England. The Teenagers, dressed in letter sweaters, creased pants and loafers, score four Top 20 R&B songs with their debut album.
"Then," Toni says, "I get a call from my uncle and he says, 'Come on down here. I got a group I'd like you to meet. They're called Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and they need a fan club. I want you to be the president.'"
"You want me to be the president?"
"Yeah. Come on down here."
So Toni goes on down to Goldner's fancy apartment, where her uncle introduces her to the guys. "Guys. I'd like you to meet my niece. She's going to be the president of your fan club."
"Hi. How are you?"
"I'm fine, thanks."
Toni sits with the guys over Coke and ice cream and gets to know Frankie. "He's fourteen and I'm thirteen, and from the first time we see each other, we just get this feeling," she says. "You know, this wonderful feeling. What do you call it? Vibes?"
Frankie is friendly and polite, always joking and kind of cocky, with a button nose, million-dollar smile and choirboy soprano. "I mean, anyone could fall in love with him," Toni recalls. "He just had this...this thing. It sent girls ga-ga."
Toni and Frankie begin to date. Toni's twin sister, Dolores, the fan-club vice president, dates Teenager Joe Negroni. And Toni's best friend, Lorraine, dates Teenager second tenor Jimmy Merchant. "We never double-dated or anything, but it was all right," Toni says.
