Miscellaneous Lanza-related questions/comments

[Derek McGovern]

I'm starting a new "Miscellaneous Lanza" thread here, as our previous one was getting rather long :) As always, please use this thread for all those miscellaneous Lanza-related questions or comments that don't warrant an individual thread of their own.

To start the ball rolling, I'd like to share this delightful 2005 interview with actress Argentina Brunetti (1907-2005) that Armando sent me. Ms. Brunetti had a small part in The Great Caruso as the wife of Neapolitan flour merchant Egisto Barretto. Here's what she had to say about Lanza:

If Mario Lanza was still alive, I am convinced that he would have been an even greater opera singer than either Caruso himself or even Pavarotti. Since I have heard them all sing countless times in person, I think that I can make such a statement with some degree of accuracy.

How lovely! And what an amazing person in her own right Ms. Brunetti was, as her son -- coincidentally (?) named Mario -- makes plain in this IMDB mini-bio. 

   

[Derek McGovern]

A P.S. to the above: I hadn't realized until today that Argentina Brunetti was the daughter of Mimi Aguglia (1884-1970), who plays Mario's mother in That Midnight Kiss. Thanks, Marilyn F., for that interesting tidbit! 

I see that Ms. Aguglia was quite a beauty in her day:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0013405/

[norma]

Dear Derek,

                 Have just stumbled on M.G.M.`s 25th Anniversary party on YouTube.I had seen the shot of Mario seated at the table before,but had not seen .the full version where all the stars are introduced one by one including Mario.He does look rather overawed .I wonder what he said to Angela Lansbury.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                    Norma

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Norma: I hadn't seen the full version before either, so thanks for bringing it to my attention! Here's the YouTube link for anyone else who hasn't seen it. Mario makes his appearance at the two-minute mark, and certainly oozes star appeal.

Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

Armando kindly sent me two rare photos today of cut scenes from The Great Caruso. I've just added them to the "Miscellaneous" section of our Photo Gallery on our main site. You'll find them on the sixth line down, and they're both of Lanza with soprano Jarmila Novotna, who plays the haughty diva Maria Selka in the film. Intriguingly, Mario/Enrico is comforting her in one of them; in the other, they're singing "E il Sol dell'Anima." (Presumably one or the other of these audio outtakes.) Interesting to know that the latter was actually filmed -- though it's frustrating, of course, to think that it could still be languishing in the MGM vaults.

Now I want to know if the Improvviso scene was filmed! We know that Lanza made a partial recording of the aria.

[Людмила Хрулькова]

Dear Derek and members of the site! Do you know the beautiful singer - baritone Muslim Magomayev? (He died 2.5 years ago). Back in 1993, he published the book "The Great Lanza," and always regretted that the book was not translated into English, it does not read English fans Lanza.Magomayev was a big fan of Mario Lanza in 1989 with his wife, also a magnificent singer Tamara Sinyavskaya traveled to the United States, met with the family Lanza and Terry Robinson.

    Here is a link to the site of Muslum Magomayev:http:

http://magomaev.info/main.html

    This page contains an electronic version of the book:

http://magomaev.info/hobby.html

    In the "Video" (History of Music) has two television shows on Lanza and amateur films, shot during a trip to the United States.

http://magomaev.info/Istorija-muzyki.html

    I've been visiting your site and I can not decide to write about.

I think that only stupid, envious and mediocre people can say that Mario had a "little voice" and I think they do not have to prove that "The Volga flows into the Caspian Sea"

    A confident that his live voice more powerful and richer than in most good record.

            Yours truli, Lyudmila.

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Lyudmila: Welcome, and, yes, I'm familiar with Muslim Magomayev, and have watched some of his singing on YouTube. Yet another fine singer who was deeply impressed by Lanza!

Tell me, is it true that The Great Caruso was not shown in Russia until after Mario's death? Dorothy Kirsten states that it was shown as part of a cultural exchange programme, and that it served as an excellent introduction to her when she toured Russia in 1962. It's also been claimed (by an RCA liner notes writer -- admittedly not the most likely slave to accuracy!) that many of Lanza's Russian fans only became aware of him in 1966, and "refused to believe that he had died seven years earlier." 

Cheers

Derek  

[Steff]

Hi Derek and Armando,

Great shots. Now I wonder what the scene which we see in the second picture (Caruso consoling Selka) really was about.
Believe it or not, I've always felt that there was something missing in the film. First Selka insults Caruso during their very first
encounter and rehearsal at Covent Garden, and it does not seem as if they could ever get along with each other. Then, during
the performance, while singing  "La donna è mobile," Caruso looks "back stage" where Selka is standing with other singers
watching his performance, he smiles at  her, and she returns the smile, as if nothing had happened before.
Do you know more about the content of the cut-out dialogue?

Steff

[Armando]

Hi Steff: The deleted scenes, including the elusive Improvviso, are almost certainly in the bound script that I last saw at Dolfi’s home in 2002. Other than glance at it I was not permitted to look inside the actual script, so I suggest you contact LL. If after the dispute between Dolfi and Ellisa the script is now in her possession, Derek Mannering might be able to shed some light on the matter.   

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Armando and Steff: I sincerely hope that whoever is sitting on Lanza's film scripts appreciates what treasures she's acquired! It would be nice to think that, one of these days, these scripts (along with other precious Lanza material) could be made available to the general public. I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Ellisa had wanted to donate various things to a certain university, but that no interest was shown on the part of the institution. Even if that's true, I'm sure that there would be other universities -- particularly those specializing in the performing arts -- that would jump at the chance of housing a Lanza archive.   

Apart from the deleted Novotna and Improvviso scenes from The Great Caruso, I'd dearly love to read the final shooting script for Serenade, which would surely shed light on Damon Vincenti's obsession with Kendall Hale, which, as we know, is truncated in the film to the point of silliness :)

Cheers

Derek

[lkhru...@gmail.com]

Hello, Derek ! In 1966 or 1967 i and my two girlfrend see a movie " That Midnight Kiss " and " The Toast of New Orleans" ( each more than ten times ). We were then 17-18 years, we studied College of Music. It was in Kazakhstan. We already knew what Mario Lanza is dead. Also we knew that is the film " The Great Caruso ", but while i have not seen it.                                                                                                                                                                                   I do not believe that none of those who knew and heard Lanza , not knew in 1966, that he died in 1959. Were published in the journal " Musical Life "at the time.                  Difficult guestion ! Of course, i can not say all bat we are very young, they knew.                                                                                                                    You probabli laugh at me, while i do not know English and fre very worried because very ashamed to write tu you, i studied Deutsch. Sorry !                                         Ljudmila.

[leeann]

A little flight of fantasy here--interpolating an episode that's frequently mentioned in Caruso biographies--although not, I believe, in Dorothy Caruso's.  The incident, as I recall, is of course taken quite out of context in the film but occurred in real life with Hungarian soprano Marguerite de Nuovina early in Caruso's career. At the Teatro Lirico in Milan, Caruso was given five days to learn a role opposite de Nuovina in a Massanet opera. De Nuovina  was not at all pleased to sing with Caruso--despite his growing reputation and success--and when he showed up at rehearsal wearing a hat, the scene in the movie becomes reality: she yanked it off his head and reminded him in no uncertain terms not to wear such a thing in the presence of a lady.

Well, according to the Caruso biographies, he sang that night to great acclaim; she did not. Far from it. (Although at least one Massanet biographer quite contradicts that.) So, could it be that the Caruso/Lanza character was comforting Selka about those horrible reviews? :-)

On a more serious note--donations to libraries and museums are a bit more difficult than one might think, of course. Potential donors show up with artifacts and records they treasure, but institutions simply don't have the space or money to take everything that's offered--or the proffered collections just don't match the institutional mission.

But donors need to be selective too! The value of Lanza papers, documents, and artifacts seems wide-ranging with inter-disciplinary relevance to the public at large and to specialized researchers, and selecting and negotiating with an appropriate institution seems tremendously important. 

Questions about how such collections match the institution a donor is interested in (and perhaps being able to explain that to a potential repository) the institution's long-term preservation and digitization goals, asking about what kind of relationships it has with other repositories, the potential scope of public access--all kinds of questions are worth exploring on the part of the people fortunate enough to have potential Lanza archival material in their personal possession.

So the short form of this is wow, what a gift it would be to have Lanza documents and records available through a library, a university collection, or some such thing, but it's worthwhile to be sure it's the right one. Fingers crossed.  Best, Lee Ann

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Lee Ann: That's very interesting about Marguerite de Nouvina, and, yes, it would certainly seem that she was the inspiration for Maria Selka. 

I suppose it's entirely possible in that deleted dressing room scene that Mario/Enrico is comforting Selka over her "horrible reviews." The only thing that makes me question that is the fact that since the reviews would usually be out in the morning paper the day after the first performance, why would she wait until she was in costume for the next(?) performance -- presumably a day or two later -- to break down? (Then again, when did logic ever matter to Hollywood?!) But assuming your hunch is correct, I'd say that the screenwriters have opted for a more dramatic approach here, with Selka/de Nouvina being booed by the Covent Garden audience rather than being damned by the critics.

Of course, none of this explains why there are two takes of "E' il Sol dell'Anima": one sung very softly by Lanza and the other in full voice -- and interrupted by Novotna saying "Stop screaming!" Did the original script call for Lanza to surprise Selka in performance by singing in mezza voce -- and therefore showing that he wasn't the boorish "peasant" she'd accused him of being? I'd love to know.     

                                                                                                                       ************************

Ah, so donating material to a university or a library isn't as straightforward as I'd thought. Pity. Of course, there's also the Mario Lanza Museum, but (and correct me if I'm wrong) I don't think they'd have the space or facilities for storing the kind of Lanza collection I'm thinking of. I've never been to the Museum, but my impression of is that its artifacts are more the purely visual kind: costumes, gold records, photos, etc. I don't think it's set up for researchers/scholars/aficionados who want to pore over Lanza's letters, film scripts, and other precious (and increasingly fragile) documents. That's why I'd love to see a Lanza collection housed within the research center of a decent university -- like, say, the University of Texas at Austin's Harry Ransom Research Center, which holds a huge Bernard Shaw collection (and was very helpful to me when I was writing my PhD thesis).  

Cheers

Derek 

[leeann]

Well, you made sense out of a flight of fantasy! :-)  I hadn't made the connection, either, between that scene and the "Stop screaming you pig!" line full voice version. 

And clearly there are a great many wishes afoot that proper housing, preservation, and access to Lanza collections would NOT be a flight of fantasy. The thing is, the Mario Lanza Museum has done so much to perserve Lanza's heritage in Philadelphia and around the world--including the scholarship fund which has boosted now hundreds aspiring and successful young vocalists. For the Museum, though, it does appear that the archival work critical to documents and other original Lanza materials  would be one of those cases of "that's not what we're here for; it's not in our mission, budget, space." 

And besides, part of the function of repositories is making materials available and accessible, and that takes highly trained, professional archvists and librarians. But museums and repositories sometimes work together--the big helping the small--and there are certainly a great many extraordinary university libraries alone in Philadelphia.  It's always possible that the Lanza Museum might serve as a conduit to establishing a Mario Lanza collection housed where it might be cared for and widely available. But I'd better leave that speculation to the people actually doing the work! Again, with fingers crossed that this might become a reality!  Best, LeeAnn

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Lee Ann: I agree that the Lanza Museum staff -- all of whom I understand are unpaid volunteers -- do a wonderful job in promoting Lanza. (Muriel has often spoken to me privately of her admiration for the Museum staff -- tireless workers such as Jeanette Frese and Mary Papola.) Then there's the Mario Lanza Institute, which, as well as offering the scholarships you mentioned, also hosts the annual Lanza Ball (in Philadelphia), an event that is still going strong after almost 50 years.

Yes, it would make sense for a Lanza archive (if such a project could ever get off the ground -- admittedly a big "if") to be housed at one of the fine university libraries in Philadelphia. Alternatively, wouldn't it be wonderful if a wealthy benefactor were to bequeath a princely sum on the Lanza Museum with the goal of enabling it to radically expand its premises, pay its staff, and house its own extensive archive? One can always dream, I guess...
                                                
Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

Just to lighten the mood a little :), I thought I'd share two hilarious articles about Mario that Steff kindly sent me a week ago. Some of you may remember the vacuum cleaner story, but for those who haven't encountered that particular piece of lunacy (and also the late Bea Arthur's "encounter" with Lanza): enjoy!!

Cheers
Derek





National Enquirer, March 8, 1994

Behind the Screens
'Golden Girl' Bea Arthur gets cooking tips from ... a ghost!

Bea Arthur suspects she's got a psychic link to the Other Side after seeing her third ghost - and this time she got cooking tips from Beyond the Grave. The Golden Girl revealed to this column back in 1992 that she was terrorized by the spirits of Vivien Leigh and comic Benny Hill in a London apartment. Now Bea tells me she's just been visited by the ghost of opera legend Mario Lanza at a New York appartment! Bea is leasing the pad from world-famous opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa while appearing in a non-singing role in the Met Opera "Daughter of the Regiment."

One night Bea was cooking spaghetti when close pal Charles Pierce put on a Lanza record in the living room. Says Bea: "Suddenly his wispy figure appeared about 10 feet away from me. I instantly recognized him: Mario Lanza. The ghost advised me not to overcook the pasta and told me how to spice up the sauce, then faded away. I was rattled - but it turned out to be the best spaghetti I've ever tasted!"

[leeann]

Hi.  I somehow missed this January 2011 article in the Philadelphia Magazine about the Mario Lanza Museum with the well, intriguing, title, "Mario Lanza Isn't Dead Yet."

The author clearly writes with affection for the Museum and its volunteers and a with clear sense of Mario Lanza's place in history, of pride, of how he is important to his neighborhood and to his city. But there is a tinge, I think, of awareness of how things have changed and are changing in South Philly, how things are changing in the way we remember people of Lanza's generation, and of how museums, too, are changing because they must.  (Don't get me started :-))

It's an article fraught with a subtext of nostalgia, actually.

And it raises the question of how a museum as special and specialized as this one might move with the times.  Best, Lee Ann

[gary from NS]

This is a great story..I can picture Bea Arthur seeing the figure of Lanza,and of course why wouldn't Mario hang around in Tiri's apartment.  I'll bet Bea cooked the pasta to Mario's taste,and he could always be counted on to "spicing up" things no matter where he showed up in person, or as an apparition.
Cheers to all,

Gary

[leeann]

I ran across an unfamiliar database this morning: Cinema Image Gallery which "presents the history of movie-making through a wide range of high-quality images of films in production..."

The database included about 33 Lanza images--most of which were stills or publicity shots from the first three movies, and the attached photo was new to me. I hope those of you who are familiar with it won't mind seeing it again--it's such a happy shot.  Left to right, David Niven, Lanza and Howard Keel, dated 1950.   And given questions that surface from time to time about Lanza's height, it seems pretty clear here that if he's any taller than 5' 7.5",  Niven and Keel approach the heavens.  Best, Lee Ann

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Lee Ann: Thanks for sharing that pic. Very cute! And, yes, in terms of settling the issue of Mario's height, it does seem rather conclusive, doesn't it? :) David Niven was 6' and Howard Keel 6' 3", so even the most dedicated of the Mario-Was-Actually-Reasonably-Tall movement would have trouble maintaining here that Lanza was 5' 10". (In a 1999 interview, Terry Robinson even claimed that Mario was 5' 10" and a half "in stocking feet," and that he only "looked shorter because his shoulders and chest were so big.")

But why is it so important to some fans that Lanza should have been taller than he really was?  His actual height was perfectly "respectable" -- 5' 7½" (or 172cm) -- close to the average height, in other words, for a US adult male in 1950, and he was certainly taller than many other celebrated tenors (e.g. Caruso, Bjoerling, Gigli, Tucker). There were also plenty of Hollywood stars in the 1950s who were more or less the same height (or shorter): James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, and Frank Sinatra, to name but a few. 

Cheers      

Derek 

[Michael McAdam]

Derek: Not to forget Alan Ladd who had to have his leading lady (Sophia Loren) stand in a dug out trench during medium-length shots of them together.

You know, I'd be willing to bet that pictures like the one you unearthed here, Lee Ann would not bother Lanza a bit. His publicists would be the ones who would likely bury candid shots like this one of him with two tall colleagues (don't recall ever seeing Lanza in a group shot before where he was inadvertently made to look short).

BTW, Mr. Moderator, nice shot on the left of our opening page of Lanza singing. I didn't care for the "gawky" ;-) look of him singing with baton in hand in that previous pic.

 

M.

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Mike: I just knew someone would bring up Alan Ladd! Actually, the only reason I didn't use him as an example was that -- unlike Sinatra, Dean, and Bogart (who were all within a centimetre or two of Lanza's height) -- I'd always thought Ladd was much shorter. As a kid, I'd heard that trench story many times from my father (a Ladd fan), and just assumed that Ladd was tiny. However, if his Wikipedia entry is correct, Ladd wasn't quite as short as I'd believed. It also mentions a variety of reported heights, including a ridiculous 5' 9" -- purportedly taken from his military records.

Curiously enough, though, Lanza's military records are also wrong in one instance. His enlisted record on his discharge in January 1945 says in different places that he was both 5' 10" and 5' 10½" (the "½" is handwritten! Did Robinson add it?! :)) Yet the report of his physical examination for the Army in December 1942 states 67½ inches. 5' 7½", in other words.

Why the discrepancy? Well, the first was a full-on physical exam -- with his weight, posture, pulse, blood pressure, left eye defect, etc all carefully noted -- whereas the second merely states his height, and the colour of his eyes, hair and complexion. Lindsay Perigo used to joke that Mario's famously curly hair must have been standing up on the 5' 10" day -- but what's the bet they didn't even measure him? Lanza probably volunteered the inflated height as a bit of fun, and since he was being discharged, anyway, it would hardly have mattered to anyone.

The only time Lanza ever looked 5' 10" was on the second Shower of Stars Show. It's the kinescope that distorts his height (and his features), though. It's Lanza on stilts!

Like you, Mike, I don't think Mario was particularly self-conscious about his height. He certainly didn't mind being filmed alongside much taller men -- Vincent Price, for example. (Other stars may have balked at the thought.) And he's supposed to have laughed when a comedian, noting his elevator shoes, joked "Why don't you push the 'up' button?"

In the photo below, here he is pretending to be miffed at Howard Keel's height (and I bet he has those elevator shoes on too!):

Cheers
Derek

P.S. I love that supposedly gawky photo of Lanza with baton in hand, Mike! It's a delightfully candid photo, and I feel it also reveals his sensitivity. Plus, it's nice to get away from film stills and/or posed portraits every now and then :)

[norma]

 Derek, As Henry Fogel is playing Mario`s music on 31st July,is it possible to hear this on the computer?.If so could you explain how?

 

                                                                                                                                                           All the best Norma

 

 

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Norma: Yes, you will be able to listen to Henry Fogel's programme on your computer during the actual broadcast. I'll post a reminder with all the details during the weekend.

Cheers

Derek

[Shawn]

Just listened to the Fogel show. Not bad. Not being familiar with his show I was expecting more commentary but I guess it's good just to let the singing speak for itself :) and for the most part his picks were well above par although I could have easily thought of 'better' choices in a few spots. (why not the Lamento from RAH instead of say, I'm falling in love with someone etc. or even Lasciatemi moriere or Pieta signore instead of Marechiare. no biggie I guess.)  Nice to hear the 47 'Bowl excerpts but I also would have included some of his live 48 work too- the Live Lamento from Toronto maybe or Agnus Dei.. or the live Nessun Dorma- speaking of which: did he play the unused take of Nessun Dorma from the Serenade soundtrack? I wasn't paying too close attention at the very end, haha. Maybe someone could confirm for me.

All in all, pleasant. I didn't know it was going to be nearly two hours.

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Shawn: I agree that some of the other Albert Hall performances -- especially the Lamento -- would have been preferable, but my hunch is that Henry Fogel opted for mostly songs in English from that concert so as to illustrate the popular side of Lanza. He was also keen to include as many live performances as possible to put to rest the notion that Lanza was only a studio singer.

As for why he didn't include some of the great 1948 live stuff, my guess is that he wasn't aware of those performances. But he is now. Since recording the programme, he's purchased Armando's book, and he told me that he was very impressed with the CD of live and home performances that accompanies it. 

The Nessun Dorma he played was from the Serenade soundtrack.  

Cheers

Derek

[Shawn]

I see. I shouldn't complain, it was a very fine program and would have been a good introduction for people unaware or only cursorily aware of his singing.

I know the Nessun Dorma was from the Serenade soundtrack- but wasn't there 2 takes? One 'unreleased?' It almost sounded to me like the one he played was not the one actually used in the movie- but maybe I'm wrong. As I said I was slightly distracted at that point. :)

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Shawn: Just to clarify: the Nessun Dorma played today was from the film itself, and not the somewhat superior outtake (which Prof. Fogel may not have been aware of). The film take was Take #2; the outtake was Take #1.

Cheers

Derek

[Shawn]

Ah that settles it then. Thanks. Maybe it was because it sounded a bit better than I remembered =)

Cheers

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Shawn: Some recordings do sound better over the radio, but that compression problem that I mentioned on the Fogel programme thread usually drives me mad, as it kicks in every time a singer hits a powerful note! The greater the dynamic range, the more noticeable the compression is, in my experience. If "Passione," for example, had been included today, I'm sure the impact of that high A ending would have been somewhat muted.

Incidentally, I don't think I've ever been as impressed with the 1947 E Lucevan le Stelle as I was listening to it on the programme today. It's probably Lanza's most atypical performance of the aria -- he's very restrained here -- but, my God, the plangent quality of his voice, coupled with the delicacy of his singing, really touched me. (Listening to the Hollywood Bowl Una Furtiva, on the other hand, confirmed to me today that Lanza and this aria were never meant for each other :))

Cheers

Derek      

 

[Shawn]

Funny I was impressed with the 47 E Lucevan as well. And actually even the Una furtiva was slightly better sung than I recalled- until the less than agile cadenza. :)

Speaking of cadenzas If I'm not mistaken the La Donna E mobile was the RCA recording and the Coke show version has a better ending. Ah well.

[Derek McGovern]

Hi: Yes, the La Donna was the 1950 RCA recording. I agree that the Coke show version has the better ending. 

Speaking of Coke Show versions, I really do feel that the RCA Come un Bel Di' di Maggio (which was featured on the Fogel programme) is inferior vocally to the 1952 version. The RCA recording starts out so beautifully ("Non piu'....pochi versi" and then the aria itself), and Lanza does some lovely things with the phrasing, but, as I noticed yet again today, at the crucial moment -- "Sia! Strofe, ultima Dea!" -- he can't quite maintain the vocal momentum. But the RCA version features the best opening. (A pity RCA didn't shell out for someone to sing Roucher's lines at the beginning as well -- or instead delete some of the overly long orchestral lead-in!) 

[Shawn]

I just listened to the radio show Come un bel di' di maggio again, it had been a while. I agree entirely. The tempo as usual was brisk but he handled it well and vocally he is in near top form. If you had to choose just one of them to represent Lanza's singing of the aria which would it be? :)

[Derek McGovern]

Definitely the Coke version (and that's not something you hear me say every day!) The voice is simply better placed. Being a teacher, I'd give the Coke version a B+ overall and the RCA recording a B :)

[gary from NS]

Hi all,
I was working and could not listen to the show, but your comments have been very interesting.
Derek, I love the photos today..on the opening page.

[leeann]

There is another, different kind of spotlight on Mario Lanza's music coming up in Italy.

It's the Fifteenth Omaggio Mario Lanza which includes the 13th voice competition and a symphonic concert. It all takes place between August 11-14.

In case you haven't seen it, the Mario Lanza Filignano website is translated in Italian, English and French, and it's really lovely and easy to navigate. Highlights include several series of photographs from Lanza's visit to his father's birthplace in 1957--so many interesting faces and candid shots of this event that demonstrate Armando's description in Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy (p. 232) (That section of An American Tragedy is also readable via google books here)

Excerpts:

He was welcomed like royalty by the citizens... A banquet was given in Lanza's honor. ... These simple people were immensely proud and excited at the thought of having such a celebrity as their guest. But Lanza, who loved what he often referred to as "the little people," made them feel at ease by joining in the fun...

At the height of the festivities a plaque commemorating the tenor's visit was uncovered outside where his father had been born. Lanza...delighted those present by offering an impromptu recital...without the benefit of any accompaniment, sang his heart out to his appreciative listeners.

And for a vicarious vacation, here's a beautiful view of Filignano today, and of course there are shots and clips about Filignano and past Omagio Mario Lanza all over Flickr and YouTube.   Best, Lee Ann

[Derek McGovern]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Lee Ann. It really is quite impressive that 54 years after Lanza visited Filignano, his memory is still being honoured there. Filignano looks idyllic too. If I ever get back to Italy, I must go there.

Actually, I wonder what some of the past participants in the "Omaggio" -- e.g. soprano Katia Riccarelli and tenor Nicola Martinucci -- had to say about Lanza when they performed there.

By the way, I love the photos on that site! There were a few from Filignano that I hadn't seen before -- including the one of Lanza puffing on a cigarette at the reception -- but what struck me once again is just how well he was looking in September 1957 (see below), only weeks after finishing Seven Hills of Rome. If only he'd looked this good in that movie!

Cheers
Derek

[norma]

Dear Derek,

                  How do you navigate this site to see the photos?

                                                                                                              Thank you again Norma 

 

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Norma: Simply click on "Photos" on the bottom right of the home page link provided by Lee Ann.

OR you can click here:

http://mariolanzafilignano.com/photos/?lang=en

Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

Here's something rather odd.

A visitor to our main site sent me this link for a 2010 CD release purporting to be an "original London cast recording" of The Desert Song, starring June Bronhill, Edmund Hockridge, Bruce Forsyth -- and Mario Lanza! Amazon is even selling an MP3 of the title song from the album, which it states is sung by Lanza and Judith Raskin. If it really is that recording, then obviously it's the RCA recording from 1959.

But what's especially odd is that the cover even names Lanza as its fourth-billed (!) star (see below). A deliberate attempt to rip off unsuspecting customers or a genuine (if weird) error? Of course, it's possible that Lanza is on the album, falsely presented as one of the stars of this London production.

Here's a link to an earlier release of this album -- this time with no Lanza in sight :)

[norma]

Dear Derek,

                Thanks for the information.I  was able to  see the photos,some of which I had not seen before .

     Mario does look well .

 

                                                                                                         Thanks again Norma                                                                                                                  

[Derek McGovern]

I heard the other day that Britain is considering adopting the European Parliament's proposal to extend copyright on recordings from the current 50 year-period to 70 years. (Originally, it was going to be 95 years!) A number of other European countries, such as Denmark, have already given their support for the proposal.

Now if this happens, it'll have major consequences for all those Naxos Lanza releases, not to mention the numerous bootleg Lanza CDs that have surfaced in Europe during the last decade or so. Do a search on Lanza at amazon.co.uk and you'll find dozens upon dozens of these (usually) dubious releases. None of them is (technically) available in the US, where all of Mario's recordings are still copyright-protected. If the 70-year rule comes into force in Europe, that effectively prevents anyone other than SonyBMG from releasing a Lanza disc until at least 2020!!

Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

Just the other day, I wrote the following:

On the subject of essays for our main site, if anyone's interested in writing an article for our main site, please do drop me a line. We have some wonderfully talented writers among us, and if there's a particular Lanza recording, or album, or film that you'd like to explore -- or some other worthy Lanza-related topic -- I'd love to know. 

Lo and behold, member Gary Maidens immediately set to writing, and within a day had penned a beautifully nostalgic essay on the impact of Lanza (and other great singers) on his life. Entitled "Lanza the Spark," it's now available on our main site in a new sub-section that Lee Ann and I have created specifically for forum members' essays of a more personal nature. (We've shifted my own essay, "Voice in the Night," there as well, since it's as much about me as it is Mario Lanza.)   

I think you'll agree that Gary has that all-too-rare ability to write from the heart (not to mention the talent to evoke the atmosphere of an earlier time), and I'm delighted that he took me up on my "challenge"! 

Cheers

Derek

[gary from NS]

Derek,

Many thanks  for the kind words,and it was my pleasure to add my personal recollections to the forum.

Cheers
Gary

[leeann]

Dear Gary, This was a lovely article.  I was touched by what this music has meant to you and how it has touched your family across generations. Thank you for writing about it. Best, Lee Ann

[Lou]

Hi Gary: Lovely evocative piece. It stirs memories of my own.Thanks for sharing.
Cheers,
Lou

[Armando]

Beautifully expressed and quite moving, Gary. Well done!

Armando

[gary from NS]

Hi Derek, et al

I just read your essay "Voice in the Night",and just as the first time I read it, I can feel your love and admiration for Lanza.
Your thoughtful words beautifully describe how Mario affected you,at such a young age.

I read, and see our experiences with Lanza, are closely aligned,and I am sure many others would share similar thoughts.

I love that your went to Italy, and sought out the persons you mentioned,and their individual recollections.
We are now at a time now, when few are left, who could related their first hand experiences with Mario.

Cheers,
Gary
 

[gary from NS]

Lou,LeeAnn, and Armando,

I appreciate your responses. Many thanks.

Cheers,
Gary

[Michael McAdam]

Hey Gary: That was a really heartfelt, honest and quite touching essay. Well done! As a former magazine writer (with a lingering "block" of late) I guess I should get cracking and pen something when I get a bit of spare time. If I do, I hope it's half as good as your effort.

 

Mike

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Gary: Many thanks for your kind words. "Voice in the Night" was actually my first real piece on Lanza (about twelve years ago, I think), and the experience of writing it got me interested in journalism. Before long, I was doing feature articles for The Press on everything under the sun from stuttering to Motor Neurone Disease! Then along came the idea of doing a PhD....So you see, you never know where an essay on Lanza may lead you! (I tell you this for your own safety :))

Yes, it's a sobering thought just how few Lanza friends and associates are still with us. One person whom I'd love to have interviewed is Hans Söhnker (1903-1981), that very fine actor who played the uncle in For the First Time. He said some beautiful things about Lanza's singing and acting in the Pagliacci scene from that film, and from what I've read of him, he was a fascinating character in his own right. During World War II, for instance, he was reportedly blacklisted by the Gestapo for helping Jews escape -- a brave fellow indeed.

Speaking of For the First Time, I do wish co-star Johanna von Koczian would grant interviews on Lanza! At 77, she's the second youngest of Lanza's surviving co-stars (Marisa Allasio from Seven Hills is the youngest at 75), and I'm sure she has plenty to add to her (much earlier) glowing reminiscences. Since 2005, she's constantly refused to be interviewed on Mario, saying that she is saving her memories for an autobiography. What a shame...

Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

A P.S. to my last message, Gary: I forgot to mention the odd coincidence that the two films that made the greatest impression on both of us (before we even reached our teens) were The Great Caruso and The Great Waltz. My father took me to both. The only difference between us was that it was the 1972 remake of The Great Waltz (with Horst Buchholz and Rossano Brazzi) that I saw, not the 1938 original. I realize now that the remake wasn't a great film, but, oh, the music!!

[gary from NS]

Hey Mike..I look forward to reading yours whenever it is presented her neighbour Mike. Your 'writing' as seen in this forum is always a pleasure to see,sharp,witty, and informing.

Cheers
Mike.
 

[gary from NS]

Hi Derek,and all;

The Great Waltz was such a treasure to me, especially as a youngster, who had grown hearing Strauss played in our house for years. Maliza Korjus was wonderful in her leading role,and I found her voice enthralling,and her screen presence very charismatic. My Dad had a crush on her,I am sure.
After all these years, I still pause now and then, and play the movie,and it still has it's appeal.The music is grand,and several scenes can pop into my memory so easily,when I think about the film.

I forgot to mention the Nelson Eddy,Jeanette MacDonald movies, which were also part of my early years.Mr.Eddy had a somewhat awkward way of acting,but I loved his singing voice; and hearing the two of them singing duets was always a real treat.
I read somewhere that MacDonald was somewhat jealous of Miss Korjus,and perhaps pulled some strings with the studio heads at the time, to keep Korjus from any further leading roles.I can't recall where or when I read this, or even it is is a fact. but it wouldn't surprise me.

Derek, another coincidence today.We are both fans of Elvis,and today marks thirty four years since his death.
Hard to believe,it has been that long.
That was another death, of a famous singer, that affected me a great deal.

Cheers
Gary

[Steff]

Hi Derek,

Speaking about Johanna von Koczian, I've always wondered why she didn't have a singing part in "For the First Time."
I understand she was at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and studied voice in Vienna.
I remember, that in a German TV series, not so long ago, she sang the "Ave Maria." (unfortunately, I do not remember, if it was the Bach/Gounod or the Schubert version).
I wish they had the recording on you-tube, but I could not spot it there.
About three years ago, I tried to contact Johanna von Koczian via her agency, but never got any reply.  Well, I don't give up ....
Incidentally, "For the First Time," apparently only was her third movie.

Steff

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Steff

Interesting point! Mind you, apart from the operatic material in Serenade and For the First Time, no one sang opposite Mario in his films after Because You're Mine. Musicals were changing in the second half of the 1950s, and, increasingly (in original film musicals, at least), characters no longer burst spontaneously into song; they had to have a reason to sing. Of the later Lanza films, "There's Gonna Be a Party Tonight" in Seven Hills is the one big exception, I guess. The music comes from nowhere, and suddenly everyone is singing in the grand tradition of the earlier film musicals!

I knew that Johanna von Koczian sang, and, just thinking about it now, wouldn't it have been fun if she and Lanza had sung a song together in her "post-operative" period? Instead of Pineapple Pickers, they could have done a duet in that odd little bar they visit!

Please do keep a lookout for Johanna's long-awaited autobiography!

Cheers
Derek

[Steff]

Hi Derek,

Now that you mentioned the Calypso from "Seven Hills of Rome," "There's Gonna be a Party Tonight" ... I just spotted the following:

Steff

[Steff]

[Derek McGovern]

Interesting, Steff. I must say that I'd never thought of There's Gonna Be a Party Tonight as "authentic West Indian, with operatic overtones" before :) That's a rather hopeful description of a very trite song!

I wonder if the originally scheduled rock'n'roll number for Seven Hills was Pineapple Pickers? It wouldn't surprise me at all, since both songs were Stoll compositions.

Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

I've just been tweaking three of the new essays on our main site: "The Opera Singers Said...", and "Myths about Lanza: the Man and the Artist, adding various comments that I'd somehow neglected the first time round.  If anyone has any suggestions for additional first-hand quotes for the Opera Singers piece, or feels that there are other myths about Lanza (the man or the artist) that should be addressed in these two essays, please let me know.

Cheers
Derek

[Steff]

Here's a column posted on July, 2011 on

http://thecolumnists.com/bawden/bawden59.html

It's an interview with Joe Pasternak which took place in 1985 at his Beverly Hills mansion.
Read what he has to say about Mario Lanza and other Hollywood stars.

Steff

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Steff: What appalling rubbish from Pasternak! I'm horrified that it's just been plastered on the internet. My comments in bold below:

JB: Didn’t you discover Mario Lanza for MGM?

JP: Don’t pin that lout on me! Mayer had already signed him and told me to try to develop him slowly. Old Louie had a real thing for opera, thought it was so classy. A strange comment from someone who loved including opera in his own films. So Mayer’s secretary, Ida Koverman, brings this kid over and we test him. He was already too pudgy. Pudgy? Stocky, yes, as Pasternak wrote in his autobiography, but hardly plump. Lanza was in fine shape in August 1947! But he did have a voice that recorded beautifully. In a previous interview, Pasternak said it was the most beautiful voice he had ever heard in his life --- and that was the live Lanza he was responding to. Could he have made it in the real opera world? Doubtful. He lacked discipline from the beginning. Of course, Pasternak conveniently overlooks the Pinkertons Lanza went on to sing after signing his MGM contract. My job was to try and tame him and I guess I failed at that. He was brought up to believe he could do anything. He used stevedore’s language on the set, was so brutish to Kathryn Grayson that David Niven threatened to clobber him. Strange that he and Niven got on so well, then---and that Niven was quite happy to work with him again. (Niven was originally going to be in Seven Hills of Rome.) Behind the furniture, curtains he did what dogs do. He binged on food and sex. So Pasternak actually observed Lanza having sex?! A light lunch to him was a gallon of cheap Italian wine and a whole roast turkey with the trimmings. Lanza drinking "cheap Italian wine"? I doubt it! Only the best would do for him. And if he'd eaten a minimum of one whole turkey a day, he would have been the size of Pavarotti by the end of shooting. MGM wanted to make him and Grayson into the latest MacDonald and Eddy. But that first one, "That Midnight Kiss," barely made back costs. That Midnight Kiss was a box office success!

Mayer ordered all stops out on the second [third!] --" The Great Caruso," but he had already coarsened. What --- vocally? He was at his peak! What an ego! See Pasternak's letter below!! As far as he was concerned it should have been re-titled "The Great Lanza." Did we play fast and loose with the basic facts? You betcha! We had Caruso die in the wings of the Met for effect. He never really did. He never married a society dame. So who was Dorothy Benjamin then??!! Mayer wanted that put in. Ann Blyth. As production went on, Mario added something like 40 pounds. Oh really? Where in the film does his weight fluctuate to anywhere near that extent? We put him in a girdle, used special lighting, the camera guy Joe Ruttenberg was going crazy. But he got away with it. The movie was a hit. What can I say?

By the time we did "Because You’re Mine" (1952) he was completely out of control. How we finished that one I don’t know. Alexander Hall directed it and said the experience was akin to working for Harry Cohn, the strain was horrible on all of us. Hall is on record as saying that it was a pleasant experience!! Because Mario’s moods changed by the hour. But since it was profitable we plunged on with "The Student Prince. Wrong. Because You're Mine wasn't even released until October 1952---a month after MGM had announced that The Student Prince was being cancelled, and almost three months after its songs had been recorded.

I finally got my revenge with "The Student Prince" (1954). It was a Lanza film without Lanza. He had pre-recorded the sound track, but kept binging and within a few weeks was 50 pounds heavier and no film had as yet been shot. So I fired him. Pasternak didn't fire him; Dore Schary did. If anything, Pasternak wanted to keep working with Lanza, as he acknowledged on the 1974 BBC radio documentary. Mayer was no longer at the studio. And I put in Edmund Purdom and he lip-synched to Mario’s glorious voice. It was heavenly revenge and the film did make money. Mario stormed over to Warners where he made that dreadful stinker ("Serenade") and Jack Warner phoned and said I should have warned him he was getting such an s.o.b. Warner was reportedly very happy with the film, even wiring Lanza to congratulate him after its completion. But why not let Jack share some of my sorrows!

Here are extracts from a letter from Pasternak to Lanza dated 20 September 1950, and written during the filming of The Great Caruso. (By this stage, Pasternak had known Lanza for three years.) A copy of this letter can be seen on page 117 of the Damon Lanza/Bob Dolfi/Mark Muller book Be My Love: A Celebration of Mario Lanza.

Dear Mario . . . I may as well tell you that I'm very happy and proud and thrilled to know you have justified my undying confidence in your having such a good heart -- and that basically you are such a good guy. . . . I have nothing but the highest praise for your work -- and your behavior -- and for being the kind of guy I knew you always were -- which makes me mighty proud of you.

Love and kisses to you and Betty,

[Joe Pasternak]

I think I'll send the above to Jim Bawden, whose column the Pasternak comments were published in!

Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

P.S. I should also add that Pasternak is lying when he says that Lanza was fired for being overweight! As we know, Mario's weight was the least of the problems with regard to The Student Prince.

[Armando]

Will the real Joe Pasternak please stand up……

I interviewed Pasternak twice, in 1977. The first time was quite a strange experience as I had the impression that poor old Pasternak wasn’t altogether there- probably suffering from Alzheimer. I met him in his office, at the Masquers Club in Hollywood and he greeted me with, “ Mario Lanza was an animal –I hated him!”

He then rambled on about all the problems he had had with him. Weight, temperament, ego, and so on.  I sat there dumfounded, listening to the endless tirade and hardly uttering a word, but I guess I must have made a reasonable impression since, all of a sudden he came out with “Come to my home next (whatever the day was) and we can talk some more.”

So, a couple of days later I turned up at his Beverly Hills home and, apart from the gravely voice, was greeted by a totally different man. He introduced me to his much younger and still extremely beautiful wife, Dorothy, and then, much to my amazement, said “ You are here to talk about Mario Lanza -I loved him! He had the most beautiful voice I ever heard! He was an instant sensation with That Midnight Kiss!  Before he died I wanted to make another film with him.” 

His wife, other than saying that she thought Lanza had tremendous sex appeal and that I reminded her of the Italian actor Fabrizio Mioni, didn’t say much more.

But as I said, this Pasternak was totally different man from the one I had met only a couple of days earlier.  So, which one was the real Pasternak ? Probably a combination of the two. After all, if you hate someone so much you don’t send a telegram of condolences and you certainly don’t act as an honorary pallbearer!

I find it astonishing that eight years later this fellow Bawden was able to get so much out of him!   

[Barnabas Nemeth]

Agree, Pasternak's announcement is totally rubbish, distasteful, and in many aspects doesn't meet the facts. If Mario would have been so wrong whether why P was working with him so successfully? In my opinion, Pasternak and even Ms. Grayson were simply envious and jealous for his talent and meteoric successes. Frankly, I don't appreciate any of their attitude.

 

Barnabas

[Derek McGovern]

Ciao Armando: Thanks for sharing those experiences with Pasternak. And I'd forgotten about him being an honorary pallbearer at the Los Angeles funeral. That says more than any bitter "reminiscences" 26 years later. Pasternak was also very complimentary about Lanza at the time of the Hollywood Wax museum's unveiling of the latter's likeness in the mid-1960s. Amusingly, on that occasion, the announcer referred to Pasternak's braving of "a serious case of laryngitis" just so that he could talk about Lanza...but the truth is that old Joe always sounded as though he had laryngitis :)

If Bawden responds to me (I've sent him the gist of my comments above), then I'll pass your comments along to him as well.

Incidentally, didn't Pasternak also try and claim to you at that meeting in 1977 that his much younger wife was actually his daughter?

Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

P.S. Thanks, Armando, for forwarding the attached 1950 photo of Lanza with Joe Pasternak (left), Kathryn Grayson and director Norman Taurog on the set of Toast. I've just added it to our home page. As you mentioned, Lanza certainly looks on top of the world here (and Pasternak doesn't seem to mind being with that "lout" one jot!).

[Steff]

Hi Armando:

I understand that Pasternak once said about Lanza that he had thought it would take ten movies to make Mario Lanza a star, but that actually it took only three. I think that says a lot about Lanza's work ethic on the set.
Incidentally, what a wonderful picture from the TONO set. Now, I am not sure if I had ever seen a photo of Norman Taurog before.

Steff
 

[Armando]

Hi Derek: I don’t recall the bit about his daughter- I’d have to listen to the tapes again, but what I can tell you is that the second meeting went much, much, better. We covered a lot of ground and discussed many things, particularly the problems with Because You’re Mine and The Student Prince.

For example, about the former he said, “Because You’re Mine was not the disaster everybody thought it was- it actually made quite a bit at the box office.”

He positively hated Serenade. Understandable, as it’s totally alien to his type of film making!

One thing that stuck in my mind was his remark (about Lanza,)“He was the pride and Joy of my life.”

What came through during that second encounter was, that regardless of the difficulties he had experienced, and there’s no denying that there were more than a few, he truly felt a deep affection for Lanza.

Un caro saluto

Armando

[Armando]

Yes, Steff, that’s absolutely correct. Lanza’s overnight stardom took not only Pasternak by surprise, but with the exception of Mayer, most of the big brass at MGM, as well.  

Glad you like the photo.

Armando

[Derek McGovern]

Ciao Armando: I've just remembered where I heard the anecdote about Pasternak trying to pass his wife off as his daughter---it came up during your 1977 interview with Keenan Wynn. Which reminds me: you certainly had some colourful interviewees when you were researching for your book. Listening to the tape many years ago of your interview with an agitated (Serenade producer) Henry Blanke, I thought he was going to attack you at one point for asking a seemingly harmless question!  

Yes, I can appreciate why Pasternak would have hated Serenade: a sometimes-disheveled and often-puffy Lanza (light years removed from Pasternak's notion of how a star should look), a melodramatic storyline, and no fluff. Even the musical choices would have upset him! (Otello what?!) Let's not forget that this was a man who thought Lanza was being temperamental for feeling that he knew more about music than he did.

Still, it's good to know that Pasternak retained so much affection for Lanza. I'd say it went both ways; after all, Lanza singled out Pasternak at the Photoplay Awards in 1952 --- after making Because You're Mine --- as one of the people who'd most helped his career. 

Cheers

Derek       

[Armando]

Well, Derek, there certainly were some colourful individuals and also some extremely helpful and kind ones. Speaking of Keenan Wynn, he and his wife Sharly where astonished when I told them that Edmond O’Brien had driven me to their place.  

For the first two weeks in Los Angeles I travelled almost everywhere by taxi, but when I asked O’Brien if he would call one for me to go the Wynns, he wouldn’t have a bar of it. What I didn’t know was that his eyesight was so bad that he could hardly see –hence the staggered look on the Wynns when they asked me how I got to their place.

O’Brien was a lovely fellow- down to earth, informative and with a great sense of humour. 

Equally friendly and hospitable, the Wynns asked me to stay for dinner and then took me to a night club.

When I phoned Barry Nelson to arrange for a time to see him (it was going to be at 8 in the evening) he told me to make sure that whoever drove me there stayed until I entered the apartment, since Venice, where he was living, was a seedy area.

It was Colleen who drove me there, or more precisely her chauffeur. So she waited until I was inside and then I waved to her from the upstairs window. Nelson asked me who had given me a lift and when I told him he wanted to know how she and the other children were, what they were doing and so on. Another delightful fellow, extremely intelligent and, certainly, one of the most important contributors to the book. 

But not all interviewees were as congenial. The most unpleasant and harrowing was by far Al Teitelbaum during the session I spent with him. He kept coming forth with a succession of lurid stories about Mario and boasting how many more there were in the book he had written. I had already read that so called “book” but he proudly presented me with another copy.

As for Blanke, he was really quite comical. I think he never recovered from the fact that Serenade was not a box office success!

I better stop or this will turn into another book!

Cari saluti

Armando

 

 

 

 

 

[leeann]

Dear Armando,

It would be quite wonderful if these stories--and more--did turn int another book. Thank you for telling them. Best, Lee Ann

[Derek McGovern]

Ciao Armando: I second Lee Ann's thoughts; those are indeed great stories!

I'm not surprised at all by your impressions of Al Teitelbaum----that "cheap crook," as Lanza's press agent in Rome, the honest-to-a-fault Sam Steinman, once summed him up. How else does one describe a fraudster who deliberately involved an unwitting third party---his client, Lanza---in his criminal activity (as if Mario needed any more notoriety at that point in his life!), lied about said crime to Lanza, who then had to testify twice to a Grand Jury just before his comeback film, Serenade, was released, and who years later under a cowardly pseudonym wrote the sleaziest "biography" imaginable of his so-called friend? Then there were the various percentages of Lanza's future earnings that Teitelbaum talked his naive client into needlessly signing away to himself and to his business cronies.... 

It's also telling that Teitelbaum---recently eulogized by Jeff Rense as "the finest man I knew" (note to myself: I'd hate to meet the worst!)---openly boasted to you in a recorded interview about having written that trash biography, yet two decades later emphatically denied being the author to Rense, who readily believed him. Teitelbaum couldn't even get his lies straight.

On an infinitely pleasanter note, what great characters Wynn and O'Brien were! Like their good friend Lanza, they obviously enjoyed a drink, and listening to your interviews with these larger-than-life actors, it was easy to imagine what riotous times all three must have had together :) 

I've always thought that O'Brien was a very fine actor, and an Academy Award-winning one at that. He had a sad decline, suffering from Alzheimer's for the last decade of his life, and it's even sadder that he seems to be a largely forgotten actor today. But there's an excellent account of his life here that hopefully will encourage people to check out his impressive filmography.

We're so lucky that you happened to start researching Lanza's life in the 1970s, when so many of his friends and associates were still with us. If you'd begun little more than a decade later, many of them---e.g. Wynn, O'Brien, Green, Ferrara, and London---would have been gone, and with them so much vital commentary. Speaking as objectively as I can from my perspective as both a history nut and a music lover, I'm very glad that you were the person who was asking the questions!

Cheers
Derek

[Derek McGovern]

Whoops: that link to the essay about Edmond O'Brien didn't come through in my post above. Here it is again:

http://www.classicimages.com/articles/2011/06/24/past_articles/obrien.txt

[gary from NS]

Hi All,

Just a quick note to say how much I have enjoyed reading these most informative posts,in this thread.
Armando,  yes another book- As I have said to you before, I love reading your accounts of past interviews you took part in, and of course my favourites are always anything to do with Lanza,and Pippo.
I always think about your good fortune to spend time with DiStafano. He really is one of my "musical" heroes.
I would dearly love to see a movie on Pippo telling of his extraordinary life.

Cheers

Gary

[Armando]

Thank you Lee Ann, Derek, and Gary, I’m pleased you enjoyed reading my recollections of my meetings with various people who were a part of Lanza’s life and career. 

Tracking them and others down, organising appointments, mostly through their respective agents, was a monumental task, not to mention the cost of hotels, transport, endless phone calls etc. I was, indeed, lucky to be able to talk to many who are no longer with us, but regret either being unable to contact or unaware of the whereabouts of others of significant importance.  Living, as I did, for most of my life in Australia, or what our former Prime Minister, Paul Keating, once called “The arse end of the world,” as well as spending 3 years even further south in New Zealand, didn’t make it any easier.

How much simpler a task it would have been if, at the time, I could have relied on the assistance of dedicated and untiring researchers such as Derek, Lee Ann, and Steff.

Looking back, I would do it all again, as it proved a tremendously rewarding and eye opening experience. An experience that made me realise more than ever the importance of not basing one’s opinions on the recollections of a handful of people, but to instead weigh the evidence of a wider ranging group in order to establish with as much accuracy as possible what the real Mario Lanza was like.

Had I not undertaken this resolve I would not have been able to justify writing a book about him. 

Cheers

Armando

P.S. Nice biography of Edmond O’Brien-he really was a lovely person.  

 

 

[Barnabas Nemeth]

Have you seen this speculation?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmJSWgWNCFQ&feature=related

 

1950: The boy singing with Mario Lanza is Luciano Pavarotti This Video is a rare jewel!   Obviously, this is false presumption. Pavarotti was 16 years old at that time and lived in Italy, etc.   Barnabas

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Barnabas: This has come up before, including the equally hilarious claim that Pavarotti sang a concert with Lanza in Ireland in 1958.

There is certainly no shortage of nutcases on YouTube and elsewhere!

[leeann]

Armando, more thank yous for talking more about your experiences! It's true, I know--it is a lot easier today to find people and information (although digitized stuff just scratches the surface!)--and plan trips! But nothing takes the place of the kind of work you've done in talking to people, of you're firsthand impressions, and of how you've fit so many pieces together.

I'd join Gary in saying that if you ever wanted to talk more about Pippo, you'd have happy listeners!  Best, Lee Ann

P.S. I'd never quite thought of Australia that way before--but I haven't been there. :-)

[Steff]

Hi Armando,

I just wanted to add the following Pasternak comment to our discussion:

In an article from 1951 "Candid Close-Up," by Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg, which I understand based on an interview with Joe Pasternak, it is said: And he [Pasternak] points with pride to the success of Mario Lanza in 'The Great Caruso' for MGM: "That boy is the American dream!"

Steff

[Armando]

Hi Steff: Regardless of all that had transpired between them, there is no doubt that  Pasternak’s was proud of what he had achieved with Lanza and was very fond of him. 

In his 1956 autobiography, this is what Pasternak said, “ I had been harsh with Mario, but always con amore, with love, as a father is harsh with a son whose inner fineness he will never doubt. To the end I thought well of him. I would always think of him as a friend.”

Armando