LAUNCHING OUR
VOICE DETECTIVE WEBSITE ON THE 103rd ANNIVERSARY OF
MARIO LANZA’S BIRTH

He had the ambition to be an opera singer from an early age, to ‘be the king of the singers, like Caruso’, according to Al de Palma who allowed young Freddy to listen to records at the back of his general goods shop.^[2] The future star Mario Lanza listened for hours on end, day in day out, to all the recording artists he could. This penchant for doing everything in the extreme was to characterise Mario’s trajectory in life. He would be renowned for his gargantuan appetite in all things, which included immense generosity and an abiding love of simple pleasures.

His vocal talent was encouraged by his parents and he had early lessons which led to an audition before Dr. Serge Koussevitsky, a renowned Philadelphia Maecenas who in 1942 invited Mario to take part in a summer school run by his musical foundation at Tanglewood, Massachusetts. Among the other alumni of this school, would be one Leonard Bernstein.^[3] The draft during the second world war interrupted this promising start, but during the war he was assigned to an entertainment troupe with some future influential friends and budding stars of Hollywood. It was whilst performing in the touring show Winged Victory he came to the attention of Hollywood and met his wife, Betty.^[4] Mario had been signed by Columbia before being drafted^[5] and when he signed with RCA Victor after being discharged from war service his friend, the future great baritone George London, helped Mario spend his $3000 bonus.^[6] In April 1945 Mario and Betty married and lived in New York. Mario was having singing lessons from Polly Robinson and a fellow would-be singer, Sam Weiler heard Lanza and said, ‘What’s the sense in taking lessons? I couldn’t sing like that in a million years’ He later said, ‘I had just heard the greatest voice in the world.’.^[7] Weiler decided then and there that he would never be a great singer and immediately proposed to further Mario’s career  through his contacts and financial support. An agreement was made, Weiler would fund Mario and his lifestyle and in return he would receive 10% of all Mario’s future gross earnings. Weiler also arranged for Mario to be taught by the much venerated Enrico Rosati, who had trained among others, Gigli. Upon hearing Lanza for the first time, Rosati exclaimed, ‘I have waited thirty-four years for you.’

The rest of the world did not have to wait nearly as long. Mario and George London, together with  soprano Frances Yeend formed a travelling trio called the Bel Canto Singers.^[8] With Rosati’s watchful eye or ears, and this performing apprenticeship, Mario came to the serious attention of Hollywood, on the 28 August 1947, in the person of none other than Louis B. Mayer at the Hollywood Bowl.  And the rest they say ‘is history’.^[9] He was signed and began immediately working with Joe Pasternak , with whom Mario was to have a successful but tempestuous working relationship.

Though Mario was only to make a handful of films, each one was carefully tailored to his great vocal gifts. His greatest role would be without doubt Enrico Caruso himself, in the film The Great Caruso. When studio bosses were thinking of not casting Lanza in the title role, with characteristic energy, simplicity and directness, Mario telephoned Mayer and said, ‘I want to play Caruso more than anything in the world.’ Mario later told Callinicos that “I’ll be Caruso every minute of the day.’ ^[10] And to quote further from Callinicos, ‘The obsession to emulate Caruso, the fantasy of being Caruso, had come to fruition. Now it remained for him to play the part and sing the role, almost as though his destiny were being fulfilled. This was one of the rare occurrences in the entertainment field – or any field, for that matter – where a man actually was given the equipment by God and nature to impersonate an idol. In a sense, and tragically so at the age of thirty, Mario was approaching the climax of his professional…life.’ ^[11]

Mario seemed to know he was not long for this world. and on occasion expressed such.^[12] In all he made a mere seven feature films in which he both acted and sang. He did indeed sing in The Student Prince, his final Hollywood film which had ended with his being replaced on screen. Mario toured and sang extensively throughout the United States in support of his film launches. Despite his physical decline, attributed to over-indulgence followed by binge-dieting, all reports right to the very end state that his voice never declined or failed him. It remained vibrant, beautiful and enormous right to the very end. He died in Rome in 7 October 1959. He was just thirty-eight years old.