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Mario Lanza (31 January 1921 – 7 October 1959) was an Italian American operatic tenor and Hollywood movie star who enjoyed success in the 1950s. His voice was considered by many to rival that of Enrico Caruso, whom Lanza portrayed in the controversial 1951 film The Great Caruso. Lanza was able to sing all types of music. While his highly emotional style was not loved by the critics, he was immensely popular and his many recordings are still prized today.

Brief Bio

Mario Lanza's life, sadly, has all the markings of an epic Shakespearean tragedy. The story is truly incredible: a wild, incendiary Philadelphia kid who can sing better than Caruso, sets out to become the greatest dramatic opera singer who ever lived, is detoured by Louis B. Mayer and vixen Hollywood, is remade into a fiercely handsome box office champ with 50 inch chest, his own national radio show, 1951 TIME Magazine cover idol, and king of the pop record world.

He is besieged on cross-country concert tours and appearances years before Elvis and the Beatles, a true 'superstar' before the word was invented and the first singer to ever earn Gold Records with million sellers in both classical and popular categories.

His MGM masterpiece - The Great Caruso - was the top-grossing film in the world in 1951. The Lanza voice is so incredible, so powerful, so golden, so dazzling that an awestruck Maestro Toscanini called it, simply and correctly, the 'voice of the century'. Among the multitudes of stunned admirers worldwide included the likes of: Koussevitsky, Sinatra, Presley, Schipa, Tebaldi, Tucker, Kirsten, Albanese, and countless others. Lanza's voice has been called the 'Northern Lights in a throat' and passed through a heart of peerless sensitivity and passion...and vulnerability.

Fired by MGM during production of The Student Prince in 1952 after the German director Curtis Bernhardt assailed him over the 'excess' passion of one song in his stunning recording of the soundtrack, his career began a downturn that would never be reversed. Lanza never fully recovered from the emotional catastrophe of The Student Prince fiasco and losing his MGM contract, and declined slowly in a pattern of near-alcoholism, food-binging, huge weight gains and losses, and professional tempestuousness.

Fed up with not being able to get film roles - save Serenade for Warners in 1956 - and a savage press, Lanza quit Hollywood and moved his family to ancestral Italy to rebuild his life and career. He made two mediocre European-produced films, enjoyed generally successful concert performances, and then died of an alleged heart attack on October 7, 1959, only seven years after The Student Prince nightmare at the terribly young age of 38, leaving behind four children and his shattered wife, who died five months later of a drug overdose after returning to Hollywood.

Lanza's seven films and scores of astonishing recordings continue to stun and inspire singers and the public 40 years after his death. He is celebrated and honored with film festivals, a steady flow of new CDS, and constant worldwide musical tributes, most notably by Domingo-Carreras-Pavarotti, and a multitude of lesser vocal lights. People Magazine, in 1998, summed up the Lanza voice as 'Magnificent'. Simply put, there will never be another Mario Lanza.

-Jeff Rense

Operatic career

Born Alfredo Arnold Cocozza in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was exposed to opera music and singing at a young age, and by the age of 16 his vocal talent became apparent. Starting out in local productions in Philadelphia, he later came to the attention of conductor Serge Koussevitzky, who provided young Cocozza with a full student scholarship to the Berkshire Music Festival in Tanglewood, Massachusetts.

His operatic debut, as Fenton in Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor, was at Tanglewood on August 7, 1942, after just six weeks of study with conductors Boris Goldovsky and Leonard Bernstein. It was here that Cocozza adopted his stage name, the masculine form of his mother's maiden name (Maria Lanza). His performances at Tanglewood won him critical acclaim.

His operatic career was interrupted by World War II, when he was assigned to Special Services in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He appeared on the wartime shows On the Beam and Winged Victory while in the Air Corps.

He resumed his singing career in October 1945 on the CBS radio program Great Moments in Music, where he made six appearances singing various operatic selections. He later studied under Enrico Rosati for fifteen months, then embarked on an 86-concert tour of the United States, Canada, and Mexico between July 1947 and May 1948 with George London and Frances Yeend. A concert in Hollywood brought Lanza to the attention of MGM's Louis B. Mayer, who signed Lanza to a seven-year film contract with MGM. This would prove to be a turning point in the young singer's career.

Film career

MGM's contract with Lanza required him to commit to the studio for six months, and at first Lanza was able to combine his film career with his operatic one. In May 1949, he made his first commercial recordings with RCA Victor. However, his first two films, That Midnight Kiss and The Toast of New Orleans, were very successful, as was his recording career, and Lanza's fame increased dramatically.

In 1951, Lanza portrayed Enrico Caruso in The Great Caruso, which proved to be an astonishing success. At the same time, his popularity exposed Lanza to intense criticism by music critics, including those that had praised his work years earlier.

In 1952, Lanza was dismissed by MGM after he had pre-recorded the songs for The Student Prince, and at the same time came very close to bankruptcy from bad investment decisions from his former manager. Owing about $250,000 in back taxes to the IRS, Lanza withdrew from the public eye for a time.

He returned to an active film career in 1956 in Serenade; despite its strong musical content, it was not as successful as his previous films. Lanza then moved to Rome, Italy in May 1957, where he worked on the film The Seven Hills of Rome and returned to live performing. However, his health started to decline in 1958, as Lanza suffered from phlebitis and acute high blood pressure. The next year, Lanza suffered a minor heart attack in April 1959, followed by double pneumonia. He died in Rome of a pulmonary embolism.

Lanza's short career covered radio, concerts, recordings, and motion pictures. He was the first artist for Victor Red Seal to receive a gold disc. He was also the first artist to sell two and half million albums. To date he has sold over 50,000,000 albums.

Filmography

• That Midnight Kiss, 1949
• The Toast of New Orleans, 1950
• The Great Caruso, 1951
• Because You're Mine, 1952
• The Student Prince, 1954 - voice only
• Serenade, 1956
• Seven Hills of Rome, 1958
• For the First Time, 1959

External links

• Mario Lanza fan site
• Mario Lanza Institute
• Mario Lanza: essays, reviews, downloadable recordings, forum
• Short biography of Mario Lanza by Jeff Rense
• Mario Lanza: A Radical Reassessment by Derek McGovern

• 1921 births
• 1959 deaths
• Male singers
• American opera singers
• Tenors
• Italian-American entertainers