The Mysterious Betty Lanza

[leeann]

Dear Derek,

Betty Lanza seems shrouded in mystery, and I've wondered about her,
although certainly not from a sensationalist, undocumented
perspective. And yet, her story and their story as a couple seem
inextricably important to understanding Lanza's career. Not an adjunct
spouse, she seems to pop up in unlikely places--in places where the
wives of other public figures like Lanza don't appear: in the
background during interviews, in the studio during recordings, for
example.

Her public persona seems consistent with the ideal wifely image
projected in women's magazines of the 1950s of even the most
independent women: supportive spouse, charming hostess, dedicated
mother. Biographies give us inklings of involvement in some aspects of
Lanza's career. Accounts of drug dependence come up in various ways,
depending on the biographer, but and by and large, even accounts of
her death are rather perfunctory.

I wonder why we know so little--and whether knowing more about her is
important to understanding Lanza. Best, Lee Ann

[Byron Hays]

Very interesting query, Lee Ann. I too, am very curious about Mrs. Lanza.... and from the same perspective as yours. Hope Derek can do his usual magic and fill-in some blanks. :) :)

=Byron

[Armando]

Hi Lee Ann,

I can understand you feeling that we don’t know a great deal about
Betty Lanza, but there’s really not much more to add to what has
already been written.

There’s no doubt that she was both a wonderful loving wife and mother,
but as far as Mario’s career was concerned, since she was not a
musician, she could only, as she herself stated, be of moral support
to him. No doubt it would have been difficult for anyone to live with
someone as mercurial as Mario but she had enough personality to stand
on her own two feet.

As far as the marriage was concerned, right to the end this was a true
love story. Only a few weeks before his death an elated Mario had told
his agent Sam Steinman “You know what Betty said to me this morning?
Let’s have another baby.”

The fact that through no fault of her own she became addicted to
prescription drugs made it difficult for Mario to go on tour and leave
her behind as he constantly worried that something could happen to her
or the children during his absence. For this reason, and because he
truly loved her, Mario would try and have her and the children near
him whenever possible.

Accounts of her death vary from accidental death to suicide.
Regardless, one thing is certain. After the death of her beloved Mario
she simply gave up the will to live.
She had in fact been in denial and had only accepted that he was gone
two weeks before her own death when she put up one of his photos on
the wall.

I hope this helps to clarify a little the part that Betty played in
her husband’s life.

[zsazsa]

Hi Armando,

thank you very much for your most interesting and very good
explanation on Betty Lanza, I think it is very much the Betty Lanza,
who was a loveable, very adoring wife of her great husband. I`m
thinking of her always with affection and I`m sure that it was a real
love story between Mario and Betty, such that one could write a roman
about! Rest in peace dear Betty and thank you so very much dear
Armando.
Ciao from Susan

[Derek McGovern]

I'd say that Betty certainly lived up to her goal of providing Mario with "moral support." It wasn't Lanza but Betty who objected to impresario Leslie Grade foisting a TV performance on her husband one day before his second Albert Hall recital. She always had his best interests at heart, and she was there at all the important musical events of his life from 1945 onwards: the 1947 Hollywood Bowl concert, his Pinkertons in New Orleans in 1948, the Royal Variety Show in 1957, Albert Hall in 1958, etc. And that wasn't for public show either; as Lee Ann pointed out, Betty often accompanied Mario to his recording sessions. She was there in the booth when he made his final album, The Desert Song. And if he was being interviewed on radio, she'd be there at the station too, as Jinx Falkenburg humorously mentions on that memorable 1949 NBC interview. Betty also visited Lanza's film sets on many occasions. 

This doesn't mean, of course, that she was a controlling sort of person, never letting her husband out of her sight. (Would that she'd kept an even closer eye on him!) Nor did it have anything to do with Betty wanting to be in the limelight. (Heck, she doesn't even assert herself in the British TV clip of Lanza arriving at Victoria Station in 1957, when the woman interviewing Mario fails to realize that Betty is standing next to him and asks: "Are you bringing your wife with you?" How many other "celebrity wives" would have remained silent?!) No, Betty simply wanted to be there for her husband. In fact, as Lanza himself wrote in his (private) "Letter to My Daughters" in the early 1950s, 

"Concerts and Opera in the most glamorous cities will be even more my career than movies, and your Mom will continue to be right by my side wherever I sing. When you are in love as wholeheartedly as we are, that is a must!"

Lanza also wrote in the same letter:

"It was love at first sight for both of us. I hadn't a cent, other than my Army pay, so I couldn't impress her with any front. No, and I didn't sing at all. We'd had a number of dates and were crazily in love before I ever sang to her. That's how I know that when the real thing comes along you won't need any props and you won't have Papa glaring at you. All I ask is that you be woman enough, both of you, to wait until lightning hits you -- as your mother and I did."

Interestingly, even some of the fans who visited Lanza at the Villa Badoglio in 1959 commented on Betty's devotion to her husband:

"Betty joined us [while we were waiting for Mario] and we sat in a large, cool room, drinking iced drinks and discussing the latest Lanza record, 'Mario.' Betty thought it was wonderful (we agreed) and that the photograph on the cover was 'real yummy' (we agreed). Looking at Betty, sitting there talking about her husband, we fully realised what Mario meant to her. The mention of his name set her eyes alight with happiness, and she radiated her love for him with every gesture and movement.

"We talked incessantly about Mario, with Betty getting just as excited as we were, until it seemed that she was an ordinary admirer, like us, and not his wife."

If that's not intense love, then I don't know what is. It's both wonderful and tragic at the same time -- tragic in the sense that Betty couldn't function after his death. As Mario's mother recalled Betty telling her just a few days before she died, "Without him, there is no life."  

[Maria Luísa]

I agree absolutely with your words about Betty, Derek. I don't think
of another Hollywood couple that loved each other that much. All we
read and see (in that interview with the Father Kelly(?) in Italy
where he also sings) when he talked about his wife (and also
companion, as he stated) are words of infinite gratitude and true
love.

How many Hollywood couples were married for such a long time by those
days? Very few and these counted by the fingers of one soul hand with
some fingers left out. She loved him passionately and so did him her.
She accompanied him to almost all the work he had to do from the very
beginning of their marriage until the end and let's not forget this
kept happening even when they had already 4 children to care and look
after! This is some wife. I'm sure also that Betty knew perfectly well
that she was married to an immensely handsome man full of charisma and
with such a voice that in a question of a year or two of start singing
marveled the world all over.

She had a total perception of how women admirers loved him
tremendously. His astonishing voice and manly posture attracted
millions of both men and women, especially women who would do I don't
know what to have him as a lover or a husband. Betty, intelligent
enough, knew that very well and I'm sure that she would not leave
Mario alone one soul minute exactly because of this. And she did very
well too.

If I were in her place I would do exactly the same. She loved him so
passionately that could not think of loosing him to another woman. And
this would not happen only if she kept herself always near him. For
Betty his lost was of such magnitude that after his death she simply
could not face life anymore. This in spite of having 4 wonderful
children. Now let's face it, this is love and passion at its maxim
expression.

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Luísa: I think it's important that we don't lose sight of the fact
that although Mario and Betty obviously loved each other intensely,
their marriage was a stormy one at times. Even if we dismiss a sordid
incident mentioned by Al Teitelbaum aka Matt Bernard in his trashy
1971 book -- he claims that Betty tried to stab Mario with a pair of
scissors while he was asleep -- there's enough *reliable* testimony
(from John Coast, for example) to indicate that their marriage was no
fairy tale. That doesn't mean it wasn't a *good* marriage or a
successful one; of course it was. The fact that it survived what
surely would have driven any ordinary couple apart is proof of that.

Cheers
Derek

[norma]

I agree with you .Fromwhat John Coast wrote Mario and Betty would wind
each other up whatever that means.I wonder if Betty would demand the
best treatment for Marioand complain if she thought he was not getting
it.Perhaps also she might complain if he was drinking.Terry Robinson
also mentions the"Games" they would play whenthere was a
disagreement.NeverthelessI also agree that there's was a love match
and a wonderful caring marriage despite what they both had to endure.

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[Derek McGovern]

Hi Norma: What John Coast wrote (in January 1958) was that Mario and
Betty would “squabble and ignite one another,” and that Mario would
then drink “spasmodically.” But apart from the fact that all couples
bicker, this was during Lanza's comeback tour – a period when he was
both stressed and sick. (Coast mentions in the same letter that Mario
is in “bad shape” and has been suffering from severe pain in his
kidneys – “he has uric acid crystals and maybe a tiny stone” – gout,
in other words.)

Yes, Betty did demand the “best treatment” for Mario. She looked out
for him. For example, Coast mentions that she was furious that
impresario Leslie Grade had insulted her husband (as she saw it) by
paying him only half of what Bjoerling had received for a similar
appearance. Coast seems to have liked her, and noted that “she talks
sense.”

As for Terry Robinson, he may well be right that Betty and Mario
indulged in childish games with each other when they had
disagreements. But so what, I say! Besides, anything that Terry has to
say on the subject of Betty is suspect, I feel, given the fact that
Betty couldn't stand the man (and vice versa) and was forever firing
him – as Robinson candidly acknowledged to Armando. Lanza, of course,
being the big softie he was, would then rehire Robinson. But,
ultimately, Mario bowed to Betty's wishes when he was hoping to take
Robinson to Italy in 1957. “It's either him or me!” she told him!

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[leeann]

Dear Armando, Derek, and all, Thank you so much for the perceptions
and information about Betty Lanza.

Certainly, she and Mario Lanza appeared agreed on traditional roles in
the marriage. And it does seem clear that Betty Lanza defined herself
as
wife, mother, and family/household manager, and perhaps in that order,
insofar as it's possible to differentiate among them. And it seems
clear that over the years she gained intelligence about the business
and about what was best for her husband. It also seems probable that
from the beginning of their relationship when she insisted upon
marriage if she was to leave California with Lanza, that within the
marriage and their respective roles, it was an equal partnership, as
Derek says.

But still, most of what we learn about Betty Lanza is from the
perspective of her role in her husband's life, and Armando points out
there's not much more to learn than what's been written. And that's
interesting, too, since her life encompassed a time when, looking
back, we can see a dichotomy between how women were encouraged to
behave and what they were actually doing. Betty Lanza was around
strong, independent women with careers--Hedda Hopper, Jinx Falkenberg,
various actresses. More and more women like Betty Lanza were moving
outside the home into the kinds of jobs that were open to them then--
secretarial, teaching, nursing, going back to college--the numbers are
surprising. But our focus was on the image of women as strong wives
and mothers--and that seems to be where Betty Lanza fit and what was
important to her.

Her difficulties with drugs--which Armando says was no fault of her
own--still seem a bit touchy too. In the article on Lanza's death,
Armando and Dr. Mackowiak point to differences in medical treatment
between then and now. One of those differences, (unrelated to that
article, of course) I believe, was the willingness of medical
practitioners to prescribe sedatives to women, even encourage their
use--one point of view being that women were less emotionally stable
than men. That remains a bit of a mystery in Betty Lanza's life, one
aspect of her life that's often misrepresented in the lesser
biographies, and an issue that must have deeply affected the course of
her life.

All in all, she remains somewhat of an enigma, and yet despite being
the wife of a celebrity, her experience was perhaps not atypical of
what was going on in the 1950s. Best, Lee Ann

[Derek McGovern]

Very interesting post, Lee Ann. There's no doubt in my mind that
American women in the 1950s were still regarded as "less emotionally
stable than men." And, yes, you do have to wonder in Betty's case
whether her problem with prescription drugs was exacerbated by the
willingness of certain doctors to medicate her. In fact, your comments
reminded me of the case of one of my close female relatives, whose
doctor in the 1950s needlessly urged her to take valium (for what were
very minor anxiety problems) to the point where she became addicted.
It took her years to be weaned off.

Incidentally, I've always thought that the 1983 documentary Mario
Lanza: The American Caruso was one-sided in the way it presented
Mario's and Betty's personal problems. While the program spends time
on Betty's problems with pills, and presents her (courtesy of the
unreliable Mike Stern -- a notorious teller of tall tales, according
to Lanza's agent San Steinman) as hopelessly addicted, there's
virtually no suggestion that Mario had his own serious problem with
alcohol. It's that double standard again. So while Stern is probably
right that "one of the crosses that Mario had to bear was his wife's
physical condition," one could equally argue that Betty suffered just
as much through her husband's drinking.

Cheers
Derek

[leeann]

Dear Derek and Armando,

Thank you again for your points of view. I suspect if we had more
information, we'd look at Betty Lanza differently today than even we
did in 1983 when An American Caruso came out--a time which seems
alarmingly recent, even though it's close to thirty years ago.
Sometimes, it's not so much what we know, as how we interpret it or
present it--as Derek points out.

So, perhaps I have a question that kind of couples with the concurrent
thread about Caruso's iconic status. It would seem that so much of the
information we have about Mario Lanza comes from interviews or oral
histories which Armando and Derek particularly have conducted, and
continue to conduct, over a great space of time. Unlike Caruso, my
impression is that Lanza didn't leave enormous written footprints. (By
the way, given the amount of available information, we really OUGHT
to have more biographies or articles about Caruso.) And interviews and
oral histories are tremendously subjective--sometimes they really
become more about the point of view of the person who's being
interviewed than about factual information about the topic under
discussion.

For example, if I ask my brothers and sisters or if I ask my three
children about an family event, I will get numerous totally different
accounts of what happened!

So how do you sort through all this as you're unearthing the marvel of
the voice that was Mario Lanza coupled with the complex realities of
who he was?

Thanks, Lee Ann

[leeann]

Just a small nuance on the perspective on Betty Lanza brought on after reading a few press clippings--sort of a focus on the biographical points Armando and Derek made in this thread.

The article in the topic, "Another Tantalizing Operatic What-Might-Have-Been." in which she discusses Andrea Chenier and operatic ambitions, an article in the press section of (third row, second from left) on mariolanzatenbor.com, given prior to the (disastrous)  first Shower of Stars appearance, and her comments on The Christopher Show seem to indicate an disarming astuteness in dealing with the press, a talent for assuming the appropriate public persona required by circumstance--just as when she hung back as fans crowded Lanza in London. They offer further clarification, perhaps, that while she was a devoted wife and mother, she had, as Armando explains, "enough personality to stand on her own two feet."

There's a down-to-earth quality, an openness, in these interviews that must have engaged readers, made them feel she was "one of them," as Derek points out that she did with fans at the Villa Badoglio.  Her comments intelligently build and promote Lanza's image and the value of his talent and work, and they very directly address whatever the issue-at-hand: they underscore his value as a serious artist, reassure skeptics, and  yet you feel you could be sitting across the kitchen table talking to her.

Her demeanor and comments on The Christopher Show, seems to show who she is and what is important to her, yes; but as in the interviews, they also seem to indicate an awareness of who her audience was--in this case, likely somewhat conservative, probably mostly what we call "middle-America" family audience who shared the views she expressed about the role of a wife. Like political wives--and others--she had a public job to do and it seems she did it well.   Best, Lee Ann

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Lee Ann: I'd somehow missed that 1954 article (#10) quoting Betty in the press section of our main site. (I got a lump in the throat, though, reading her reference to Fred Clark. As we know, it was his house that she was renting when she died.) She comes across as articulate and intelligent (which, of course, she was), and -- as always -- a fierce champion of her husband. Speaking of which, there's a sweet account by a decidedly partisan reporter who was present at Lanza's press reception at the Dorchester Hotel in London on 15 November 1957:

When we reporters had grouped ourselves around the couch, Mario laughed and said: "I feel like Daniel in the lion's den!"
At this Betty gave him a wifely look and quipped: "Daniel didn't have me with him, though." Everyone chuckled at this remark, and then the questions were fired thick and fast.
"Is your husband temperamental, Mrs. Lanza?"
For a moment Betty reflected, and then answered: "Temperament is only a way of saying 'No' once in a while, and surely we all have that right? Mario never does anything without reason, and I would never call him temperamental."
This answer satisfied everyone, and Mario grinned broadly saying, "You shouldn't really question Betty about me -- she's just prejudiced." Nevertheless, her answer pleased him, for he promptly gave her a big hug.

The reporter goes on to note the couple's "evident affection for each other," which he felt certain was not "an act": "I was convinced that here was a couple whose love was sincere and spontaneous. Anyone would have thought they were a honeymoon couple. . .".

That also comes across in the surviving correspondence between the two, some of which was featured in the Damon Lanza/Bob Dolfi scrapbook Mario Lanza: Time Passages. There are touching letters, for example, written while Lanza was away touring as part of the Bel Canto Trio. In one of them, Betty quizzes her husband -- "You're not smoking are you, Mario?," and then goes to describe some of the concert reviews he'd sent her from small towns as sounding as though "the sports reviewer" had written them. She was no fool!

As Armando points out in his book, Betty was also a much more astute judge of character than her husband, seeing through many of the phonies and leeches that perennially surrounded him.     

Kathryn Grayson once said of Betty that she would have been "one of the great Hollywood hostesses if everything had worked out." But she was far far more than that.

Cheers

Derek

    

[Steff]

Derek, how would you assess remarks, that Colleen Lanza did in Raymond Strait's book "Star Babies" about her mother?" I am a little bit puzzled by the discrepancy (or is there none?) of Betty being absent-minded and seeing everything through rose-tinted glasses on the one hand and her being disciplinarian on the other hand (of course, only provided that Colleen really said the following).

"Mother was incredibly childlike. She lived almost in a fantasy world. In the midst of the most terrible turmoil - and we had a lot of that - she would consistently be happy, almost in some other world."

Of the four children, I [Colleen] was interested in ballet and music and played the piano - things he [my father] delighted in. Mother was more on the strict side with us. Daddy was totally lenient - never put a hand to any of us. Mom was the disciplinarian. She had to wear special shoes, but she was quite an athlete and could outrun any one of us, even if we had a head start. Her favourite punishments were spankings and locking us in our rooms, with strict admonishment that you did not come out of your room until she said so,..."

Both remarks seem of course only referring to the "private Betty,"  not to her as a person in the public eye (BTW, I think the punishments mentioned above surely were nothing Lanza-specific). However, "disciplinarian" sounds very harsh, and I would rather see Betty as a person who tried to balance her family life despite so many challenges. 

Steff

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Steff: I haven't read Star Babies. Raymond Strait's 1980 book with Terry Robinson was enough to convince me that I could live without reading further literary efforts by either man :) The Strait/Robinson book, incidentally, contains a decided bias against Betty -- not surprising, really, considering Robinson's candid admission to Armando that, "[Betty] didn't like me, and I didn't like her. She kept firing me and Mario kept bringing me back." According to Lanza's father, it was also Betty who put her foot down about Terry moving to Italy with them. 

One of the odd things about the Strait/Robinson book is that an entire five pages (out of its paltry 172) are devoted to reproducing Betty's schedules for the household and nursing staff. These schedules, if authentic, certainly suggest a highly organized person with firm though caring notions about child rearing ("Children can have no sweets unless given by Mr. and Mrs. Lanza as a special treat," etc). But, then, one of them needed to be the disciplinarian, since Mario was by all accounts the most indulgent of fathers, as Colleen acknowledged.   

I don't know what to make of the "fantasy world" comment except to say that (a), Colleen was very young at the time and (b) Betty did have a dependency on prescription drugs.

Cheers

Derek

 

[Derek McGovern]

I immediately thought of this thread -- and Lee Ann's observation here about doctors and their prescribing of drugs to women in the 1950s -- when reading one of the many obituaries of former First Lady Betty Ford today. I think that much of what Ford's daughter, Susan Ford Bales, says here about her mother could equally (and heartbreakingly) apply to Betty Lanza, who was just four years younger than Ford:   

"My dad was gone from home a lot," Ford's daughter Susan Ford Bales told Parade magazine in a 2005 interview.
"Mother was almost like a single mum, raising kids, running a house - the perfect Barbie doll wife. Like many women, she felt totally overwhelmed, undervalued and unappreciated. I thought she was a superwoman, but every woman is fragile after a point."
After Ford suffered what Bales referred to as her first nervous breakdown, doctors prescribed tranquilisers, sleeping pills and other medication.
"Doctors then were often more eager to give women pills than to listen to them," Ford told Parade.
But once she became dependent on the drugs, her daughter became frightened.
"I was scared," Bales recalled in the interview. "I wanted back the mother I admired and loved. I didn't want to see her downtrodden, stumbling, making no sense, dying."

Of course, Betty Ford ultimately overcame her addiction to prescription drugs, and went on to live a very rewarding life. Unlike Betty Lanza, though, she never had to endure the loss of her husband while she was still struggling with her addictions. Poor wonderful tragic Betty L -- the odds really were stacked against her.