Mario Lanza: The Best of Everything

Filmmaker Alan Byron offers a loving tribute here to bestselling recording artist and Hollywood star Mario Lanza (1921-1959), the tenor whose meteoric rise was quickly followed by a demoralizing fall and early death. Born Alfred Cocozza to working-class emigrant parents in Philadelphia, Lanza exhibited strong vocal ability at an early age, and his mother (whose family name he adopted) worked additional jobs to pay for his professional training. At the very beginning of his career, in 1947, he was signed by MGM to a studio contract and began making movies in 1949, enjoying a double triumph in 1951 with his first million-selling record “Be My Love” and starring role in the screen smash The Great Caruso. But the next year Lanza was dismissed (and sued) by MGM after he walked off the set of The Student Prince, after which his already-recorded songs were lip-synched by a replacement star. For the rest of his life, Lanza battled weight gain with extreme diets, and although he resumed a film career and went on concert tours, he died suddenly at the age of 38. Byron covers Lanza's life with archival and newsreel footage, movie clips, and interviews with admiring opera singers (Lesley Garrett, Richard Watson, and Joseph Calleja), voice experts, and Lanza's daughter Ellisa Lanza Bregman, who recalls how her mother Betty died shortly after her father. A solid portrait, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)