Mario Lanza: Tenor in Exile (Hardcover)

by Roland L. Bessette (Author), Mario Lanza (Author)
Key Phrases: young tenor, live opera, greatest voice, Mario Lanza, New York, The Great Caruso (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Born in 1921 to an idle war veteran and the disillusioned daughter of an Italian shopkeeper, Alfred Arnold Cocozza seemed an unlikely candidate for greatness. But in his family's crowded South Philadelphia apartment, the influence of his father's opera records combined with his own exceptional voice ("He was fond of simply vaulting, from silence, to a ringing and sustained high C") to turn the unruly boy into the most popular tenor of his day?Mario Lanza. After a few years of vocal training, a miserable stint as a military entertainer during WWII and some success as a concert and radio singer, Lanza discovered his best medium in Hollywood. In film, he found an escape from his paralyzing stage fright and a vehicle for his dark good looks. At the apex of his career, he played the legendary tenor of the century in The Great Caruso and introduced millions to the beauty of opera (Carreras, Domingo and Pavarotti all credit Lanza as an early influence). But his career soon began to spiral downward as his indolence (he never bothered to learn sight-reading, limiting his repertoire) and shocking crudeness conspired with more prosaic Hollywood vices (notably womanizing, alcoholism and eating disorders) to alienate him from the Metropolitan Opera and MGM. Bessette, a lawyer and Lanza fan, does an admirable job of unearthing a great store of anecdotes and opinions about the controversial singer. 50 b&w photos.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The story of tenor Mario Lanza is painfully compelling. Born in Philadelphia, the only child of Italian immigrant parents, he compared himself to Caruso from the start. Success in films came early, and he portrayed his idol in The Great Caruso in 1951, the highlight of his career. But Lanza was undisciplined and never developed musical skills to equal his great talent. His charisma, boyish enthusiasm, and warmth served him well in his youth but were not enough to compensate for the cancellations, drunken rages, malicious pranks, and paranoia that ended his career in Hollywood. He spoke always of an operatic career but only sang two complete performances on stage. He died in Rome in 1959 at the age of 38. Attorney Bessette has written a thorough and entertaining story, marred by digressions and occasionally amateurish phrases (e.g., "a once-prodigal talent whose tomorrows were growing short in the early winter of life"). Earlier Lanza biographies are out of print, however, and this one will be useful for larger collections.AKate McCaffrey, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse,
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 306 pages
• Publisher: Amadeus Press (March 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574670441
• ISBN-13: 978-1574670448
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,264,043 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poorly researched, incomplete and inaccurate, October 4, 1999

By	Armando Cesari ([e-mail]) (Australia) - See all my reviews

Having just read this so called biography, I am amazed at some of the comments from readers and reviewers alike. "Well researched"?"Well documented"? "Balanced"? The book is full of errors!There are blatant mistakes and distortions on virtually every page! E.G.Page 15: Filignano is in the Molise region not Abruzzi. Page 37: The RCA contract was signed in February 1945 not October 1944. Page 47: The apartment was not rent free. Lanza paid $75 per month for it.Page 219: Lanza and Di Stefano never met. I know Di Stefano. They only spoke twice on the telephone.Need I go on? I have spent a lifetime researching the life and career of Lanza (the last 20 years working on a biography.)I cannot believe that Amadeus actually published this almost completely inaccurate book. As for Mr. Bessette, I don't know his motives for attempting this futile exercise, but the mere fact that he relied on Al Teitelbaum as his main source of information says it all.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good idea, but poorly executed, February 20, 2001

By	C. Dwiggins "cary75" (Fairview, OR United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Mr. Bessette proclaimed that he set out to write a book that would help explain the troubled life and tragically early death of Mario Lanza. This is an excellent idea and (despite protests from an earlier reviewer) his hypothesis that Lanza suffered from a Bipolar Disorder which he self-medicated through alcohol and overeating rings profoundly true. As a mental health professional with a Masters Degree in Psychology, I have seen many examples of persons with such a "dual diagnosis" of both a mental disorder and substance abuse disorder, and clearly Lanza suffered from both: his mood swings appeared to be independent from his drinking, and in fact when he was apparently hypomanic he was less likely to drink.

However, after stating his purpose in writing the book in the preface, Bessette does not return to it until the epilogue, when he advances his hypothesis. He apparently felt he was writing something of a mystery novel. His book would have been much more illuminating if he had returned to his stated purpose throughout and had analyzed in more detail each example of Lanza's bizarre behavior as a hypomanic or depressed episode. Instead, we get an interesting preface, an adequate but not particularly detailed (except when it comes to financial transactions, which is likely the area most readers are least interested in detail) or original recounting of Lanza's life, and then the author's briefly sketched impressions in the epilogue. It is worth reading as an account of Lanza's life that is neither overly critical nor overly fawning, but could have been much better.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Appears he used information from other books!, February 13, 1999

By	[e-mail] Bob Dolfi (Los Angeles, Ca. USA) - See all my reviews

I have read every book out on Lanza. This book, although has different pictures in it, nonetheless is a carbon copy of all the others, with nothing new added, except some alleged isolated, unprovable stories. I suppose one could ask how and from whom after 40 years since Mario died, did he get this 'new' information, when other authors who were very close to Mario and would have had this information, never knew about it. My opinion is that this book has absolutely nothing new added to it. My concern is only that this book defames not only Mario Lanza, but his family as well, which is not appreciated by Mario's following and should be questioned in any interviews that he may have. After all, he never knew any of the family nor did he ever meet mario Lanza.