Mario Lanza Overview:

Legendary actor, Mario Lanza, was born Alfred Arnold Cocozza on Jan 31, 1921 in Philadelphia, PA. Lanza died at the age of 38 on Oct 7, 1959 in Rome, Italy .

MINI BIO:

Handsome, dark-haired American operatic tenor, enormously popular with audiences and record-buyers alike in the early fifties. After portraying his idol, Caruso, Lanza's career was undone by weight problems and his own temperament. Died from a coronary thrombosis following a crash diet.

(Source: available at Amazon Quinlan's Film Stars).

HONORS and AWARDS:

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He was honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in the categories of Recording and Motion Pictures. Lanza was never nominated for an Academy Award.

Mario Lanza BlogHub Articles:

The Mario Lanza Show

By Aurora on Oct 7, 2014 From Once Upon a Screen

I’ve been listening to varied broadcasts of “The Mario Lanza Show” on old-time radio on and off for some time. ?In fact, it is by way of these shows that I know anything about the actor/singer at all not having seen any of his films, including the mega-hit THE GREAT CARUSO directed... Read full article


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Mario Lanza Facts
Although greatly admired by generations of opera stars, including Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, José Carreras and Roberto Alagna, Lanza himself only performed two operatic roles on stage - Fenton in Nicolai's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" at the Berkshire Festival in Tanglewood, and Lt. Pinkerton in Giacomo Puccini's "Madama Butterfly" for the New Orleans Opera Association. He received rave reviews for both efforts, with Noel Straus of the New York Times hailing him as having "few equals among tenors of the day in terms of quality, warmth and power." He sang over 150 concerts in his brief career, and at the time of his death had agreed to appear in the 1960-61 Rome Opera season as Canio in "Pagliacci".

A minor uproar once resulted when Lanza went on an early '50s TV show and lip-synched to one of his hit songs rather than singing live. (This was not done in the early days of TV).

Soprano Maria Callas (who was not known for her praise of contemporary singers) is on record as calling Lanza "Caruso's successor," and in a 1973 interview said of him: "My biggest regret is not to have had the opportunity of singing with the greatest tenor voice I've ever heard."

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