LOS ANGELES, June 9 (JTA) — Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner and actor Cliff Robertson were among the friends of Mel Torme who paid tribute to the masterful pop and jazz singer at memorial services in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Torme, who died Saturday at 73 of complications from a stroke he suffered in 1996, was born to Russian Jewish immigrant parents on Chicago’s South Side. Immigration officials had changed the family’s name from Torma to Torme. In an interview some years ago, the singer recalled that he and his family would sit on the front stoop after Sabbath dinner and sing for the neighbors. About 300 fans attended the funeral, sitting on the lawn of the Westwood Village Memorial Park, while about 200 family and close friends were inside the chapel.
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