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Word: lemongello (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1976-1976
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Usage:

...while he was bombing in show business, Lemongello was succeeding in a lot of other fields. In Islip, he turned an egg-selling job into a distributorship, using the profits to invest in some gas stations, which he then swapped for a chain of coin-operated laundries. He was moving into land speculation and home building when he told the local Islip banker who was financing his housing deals about his moribund career as a crooner. The banker gave him an idea: If he could sell eggs and laundries and houses, why not himself...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Television: The $390,000 Man | 5/31/1976 | See Source »

...Lemongello and his banker chum formed a corporation and invested $32,000 in a one-shot showcase performance at the Westbury Music Fair, a theater near Islip, aimed at attracting other partners. They found six, among them the owner of a Long Island Midas Muffler franchise and an Islip doctor. The six put up $390,000, and Lemongello worked out a plan to hit the New York metropolitan-area market, as he puts it, "like a slow-release time bomb." He cut a two-record album, Love 76, then in January activated his bomb: a 13-week, $187,000 campaign...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Television: The $390,000 Man | 5/31/1976 | See Source »

They worked: Lemongello fans were born. One Brooklyn girl started staying up until 4:30 a.m. just to see his one-minute ad on TV. Another kissed the tube whenever he appeared. He booked a concert at Manhattan's Lincoln Center, and it sold out. Westbury asked him back for a one-week gig for $100,000. Love 76 has sold 43,000 copies, through mail orders drawn by the TV spots. Lemongello was becoming a household word of sorts-at least in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. But, as he ruefully admitted, "if you mentioned my name...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Television: The $390,000 Man | 5/31/1976 | See Source »

Chance to Buy. So last month Lemongello took his pitch to Los Angeles and Las Vegas with a $210,000 TV-commercial campaign. If that did not bring the record companies to their knees, promised Lemongello's banker friend, it would be on to Chicago and Texas and Florida: "We'll take him to eight or twelve cities, if necessary, to give people a chance to buy our product...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Television: The $390,000 Man | 5/31/1976 | See Source »

Last week Private Stock, a scrambling, young recording company that handles Frankie Valli, José Feliciano and the Troggs, signed on Lemongello. His backers in Long Island-not to mention viewers in Chicago, Texas and Florida-can relax for a while...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Television: The $390,000 Man | 5/31/1976 | See Source »

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