Word: lanza
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...Seven Hills of Rome (Le Cloud; M-G-M), let the music lovers say what they will, is a fine piece of entertainment for people who like to watch Mario Lanza pursue the uneven tenor of his weight. As the man gets fatter, the voice seems to get thinner. This time Tenor Lanza, by dint of strenuous fasting, has wasted himself away to a mere 200 Ibs., and his tone is as plump as a Percheron's rump. As a musician, though, Lanza owes perhaps too much to his early conditioning as a delivery man for a wholesale grocer...
...actor Lanza shows in this picture considerable improvement. He remembers almost all his lines, and he gives some imitations (of Perry Como, Frankie Laine, Dean Martin, Louis Armstrong) that could easily have been worse. He seems to enjoy the jokes they have assigned to him ("You're Italian?" "No. Only on my father's and mother's side"), and he generally plays as though he thought the story-something about an American crooner who gets stranded in Rome-rather interesting. The scenery, as a matter of fact, is fascinating. At one point, while the camera takes...
...cheeriest cherub, Baritone Robert Weede, 53, euphoric title roler of the Broadway hit musical The Most Happy Fella, recalled his own slow rise in music. "Singing success must be gained too quickly nowadays," said he. His most significant case in point: bullish Movie Tenor Mario (The Great Caruso) Lanza...
...between pictures. Disclosing that he was Lanza's second singing teacher, Weede, whose Metropolitan Opera debut finally came at 33, shook his head sadly, allowed that neither he nor anyone else had taught Lanza much. "Lanza had what I believe to be the greatest vocal gift of his decade-but that gem may never...
Vocal Sacrifice. Adler and Chotzinoff rounded up a group of young singers, among them one Mario Lanza, schooled them in acting, had them rehearse English versions of La Boheme and Figaro. As Adler tells it, one night he "trapped" RCA Boss General Sarnoff at a dinner party, and hustled out his little group to sing. When the music ended. Sarnoff looked accusingly at Adler, then sighed: "O.K., put them on the air." Adler & Co. went on the air in 1949, have been on ever since...