Caterina Valente (born January 14, 1931 in Paris) is an Italian-born singer, dancer, and actress. She comes from an Italian artist family; her father Giuseppe was a well-known accordion player, her mother, Maria Valente, a musical clown. She had three siblings, of whom Silvio Francesco was also active in show business.

In 1952 she married juggler Erik van Aro (Gerd Eric Horst Scholz). He recognized her talent and accompanied her in her initial years of worldwide success, although they later divorced. In 1953, she made her first recordings with Kurt Edelhagen. Soon afterwards she achieved great success with songs such as "Malagueña", "The Breeze and I", and "Dreh dich nicht um" with the Werner Müller orchestra. In 1955 she was featured on the "Colgate Comedy Hour" with Gordon MacRae. In the mid-1960s, Caterina worked with the legendary Claus Ogerman and recorded material in both Italian and English that he arranged/conducted and/or composed on the Decca[1] and London[2] labels. Between 1966 and 1972 she was a frequent guest on the Dean Martin Show. In 1972, she married the British pianist Roy Budd; they had a son, Alexander, but they divorced in 1979.

In Germany she was a major performer of Schlager music. There she recorded Cole Porter's "I love Paris" i.e. "Ganz Paris träumt von der Liebe", which sold more than 500,000 copies in (1954.)

From the mid fifties to the eighties German, Italian, Swiss and Austrian Television produced more than a dozen series of Valente-Shows and her guest spots over the globe are uncountable. Among others, she has performed with Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, toured extensively in concert with Woody Herman, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, Buddy Rich and has recorded with Sy Oliver, Claus Ogerman and Chet Baker just to name a few. In 1959 she was nominated for a Grammy Award.

Valente is a true world citizen and a polyglot, having sung in twelve different languages. She also plays the guitar.

She starred in 12 European movie-musicals; she dances (less exuberantly since undergoing two major hip operations); and is a virtuoso on the guitar, having strummed the instrument in an orchestra when only a teen-ager.

Major awards from Italy, Germany (2 crosses of merit), France (officer of artistic education), Brazil, Japan as well as the USA (including a best female vocalist Grammy nomination) document her artistic and civil achievements throughout the years. But she considers the 18 concerts sharing the stage of the Olympia in Paris with Michel Legrand in 1972 as well as the album VALENTE 86 with the Count Basie Orchestra and relative 1986 European Tour under the direction of, and with arrangements by Thad Jones, to be her artistic highlights.

In 1986, her 50th anniversary in showbusiness was celebrated with a televised tribute entitled Bravo Caterina, and the Guiness Book of World Records recognized her as Europe’s most successful female recording artist, with over 1350 albums to her credit.

In 2001, she released a new album Girltalk with harpist Catherine Michel. She is also the mother of singer Eric van Aro, Jr.

(info edited from Wikipedia & allaboutjazz)