The Tragically Short Lived Mario Lanza

[Palmerin]

On Friday 30 January my mother suffered a bout of gastroenteritis which caused much vomiting and diarrhea. Listening to Mario Lanza served to soothe her frazzled nerves.

'tis absolutely tragic how such an outstanding talent, who inspired Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras, died at such a prematurely early age.

[DougieB]

I always reserve a spot for his Christmas album every Christmas Eve. I know him mostly from the films, not all of which were stellar in themselves but in which his vocal talent was always obvious. As well as the classical performers you mentioned, I think Lanza may have also influenced later musical film performers such as Gordon MacRae. I've heard stories about problems on movie sets, etc., but the confidence and joy he projected onscreen are his undeniable legacy.

[Im4movies2]

I've read he had to make a choice between a career at the Met Opera or Hollywood.  He couldn't do both.  He chose Hollywood.

[Sepiatone]

Some people, likely those who disliked Lanza and his style of singing, would joke it WAS Lanza whom CAUSED the vomiting and diarrhea!

 

But seriously(and somewhat), there was a girl whom was a friend to both my wife and her older sister as they were growing up.  As an INSULT, the girl would call my wife, "Flip-flop, with the MARIO LANZA LEGS!"

 

Now, NObody knew what she meant by "flip-flop", and I'M confused as to what was inferred by MARIO LANZA LEGS.  DID Lanza have hideous looking legs?   Or, WHAT?  As my wife was only about seven or eight years old at the time, SHE had no idea, either.

 

 

Sepiatone

[hamradio]

On Friday 30 January my mother suffered a bout of gastroenteritis which caused much vomiting and diarrhea. Listening to Mario Lanza served to soothe her frazzled nerves.

'tis absolutely tragic how such an outstanding talent, who inspired Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras, died at such a prematurely early age.

 

55 years, slow news is better than none.

[Sepiatone]

On Friday 30 January my mother suffered a bout of gastroenteritis which caused much vomiting and diarrhea. Listening to Mario Lanza served to soothe her frazzled nerves.

'tis absolutely tragic how such an outstanding talent, who inspired Pavarotti, Domingo and Carreras, died at such a prematurely early age.

 

A "prematurely early age"?

 

Somebody, QUICK!  Call the "Bureau of Redundant Repitition Department"!

 

 

Sepiatone

[TomJH]

There has been much speculation about Lanza's death.

 

Lanza was a binge eater who would go on crash diets, along with food depressant drugs, all very hard on his heart, obviously. Many would say that was the cause of his "official" heart attack death in a medical clinic.

 

However, shortly before his death in Italy, Lanza received contact from Lucky Luciano, asking him to sing at a Naples charity event. When Mario was a no show at a rehearsal, he received a visit from a couple of guys with broken noses, so to speak, who convinced him of the necessity to appear at the charity.

 

But Mario was determined not to go, so checked himself into a Rome clinic, ostensibly for a weight loss program. While there doctors said his heart went bad, while his wife said she was informed that he was suffered a combo of pneumonia and phlebitis.

 

In any event, it was Lanza's driver, coming for a visit, who found the singer comatose, with an empty intravenous tube pumping air into his veins. Again, doctors said it was a heart attack death but the circumstances surrounding his death were suspicious and never fully explained.

 

Then, again, maybe the Lucky Luciano angle just makes for a good story.

[hamradio]

There has been much speculation about Lanza's death.

 

Lanza received contact from Lucky Luciano, asking him to sing at a Naples charity event. 

 

In any event, it was Lanza's driver, coming for a visit, who found the singer comatose, with an empty intravenous tube pumping air into his veins. Again, doctors said it was a heart attack death but the circumstances surrounding his death were suspicious and never fully explained.

 

 

 

Cause of death... air embolism.  Medical mystery solved. Next!

 

(Lucky Luciano must had REALLY loved his singing)  

[ginnyfan]

Apparently the clinic Lanza liked to use to go on crash diets uses something called "twilight sleep" where they would basically keep you comatose so you didn't eat. His death could have been accidental or on purpose, we'll never know that anymore than we'll ever know if Luciano offed Thelma Todd almost twenty five years earlier.

 

The circumstances were completely covered up at the time, his long time conductor, Constantine Callinicos "wrote" a biography of Mario in 1960 that mentioned the clinic, but described Mario's last day as though he was awake and alert, reading the paper when the fatal heart attack hit.

 

The Callinicos book also claimed that Mario had been told by doctors that he had reached a point when "the next drink might kill." One of the more interesting stories in the book was of an incident in 1957, before Mario's Royal Albert Hall concert, when Mario drank in his hotel room for three solid days out of anger over a question a reporter asked him. He sobered up just in time to perform.  

[midnight08]

     If I remember correctly Mario Lanza's wife was so heartbroken over his sudden death that she herself died less than a year after him.