Mario Lanza: The American Caruso

Placido Domingo hosts this powerful documentary on the tragic career of Mario Lanza, who died at the age of 38 under mysterious circumstances in a diet clinic. Born in 1921, and raised in Philadelphia, Mario "never worked" as a young man (despite his nickname "The Singing Truck Driver") according to interviewees who were friends of Lanza. Supported and doted on by his mother, Lanza eventually began his singing career, and was quickly noticed by movie mogul Louis B. Mayer. Giving up opera for singing and acting in the movies, Lanza would become a major boxoffice star in such MGM hits as The Great Caruso (Mario's idol), The Toast of New Orleans, and The Seven Hills of Rome. Interviews with costars Kathryn Grayson and Zsa Zsa Gabor, as well as producer Joe Pasternak, columnist James Bacon, trainer Terry Robinson, and Lanza's adult children, reveal a multi-faceted portrait of Lanza, who apparently had a mouth like a sailor, an amorous nature, and a low self-image. The low self-image contributed to Lanza's eating binges which resulted in wild fluctuations in weight (during the shooting of Because You're Mine, for instance, Lanza's weight ranged between 160-250 pounds-quite noticeable in some sequential scenes). Although much of the material in Mario Lanza deals with sensationalist subject matter, it's not treated in a cheap tabloid kind of way. Neither a whitewashed portrait nor a character assassination, this documentary is a fascinating look at a man who seemed to be equally beaten by the system and his own tendency toward self-destruction. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (Available from most distributors.)