Mario Lanza

Mario Lanza (January 31, 1921October 7, 1959) was an American tenor and Hollywood movie star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. The son of Italian immigrants, he began studying to be a professional singer at the age of 15. Orchestral conductor Arturo Toscanini would reputedly later call him "the greatest voice of the twentieth century." Others referred to him extravagantly as the "new Caruso", after his "instant success" in Hollywood films while MGM hoped that he would become the movie studio's "singing Clark Gable" due to his good looks and powerful voice.

After appearing at the Hollywood Bowl in 1947, Lanza signed a seven-year contract with MGM's head, Louis B. Mayer, who saw his performance and was impressed by his singing. Prior to this, Lanza had made only two appearances on an operatic stage, when in 1948 he sang the role of Pinkerton in Puccini's Madama Butterfly in New Orleans.

His movie debut was in The Midnight Kiss, which produced an unlikely hit song in the form of Giuseppe Verdi's operatic aria "Celeste Aida." The following year, in The Toast of New Orleans, his featured popular song "Be My Love" became his first million-selling hit. In 1951, he starred in the role of his tenor idol, Enrico Caruso (1873–1921), in the biopic, The Great Caruso, which produced another million-seller with "The Loveliest Night of the Year." It was the top-grossing film that year. His next film, Because You're Mine, produced his final million-selling hit of the same title, and earned an Academy Award nomination. After recording the soundtrack for his next film, The Student Prince he walked out on the project after an argument with producer Dore Schary over his behavior on the set.

Lanza was known to be "rebellious, tough, and ambitious" He made three more films before dying of a heart attack at the age of 38. At the time of his death in 1959 he was still "the most famous tenor in the world".

The Lanza "myth" was created by familiar Hollywood formulae, which took his social class and Italian-American identity and combined them with his good looks and exceptional talent as a singer to create the "poor boy makes good", who is "transformed into a star". Nonetheless, his groundbreaking films, especially The Great Caruso, influenced numerous future opera stars, including José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti. while Hedda Hopper stated, ". . . there had never been anyone like Mario, and I doubt whether we shall ever see his like again."

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