called “Tina Lina”—swirling and spinning and affecting quite a bit of the mating dance in a ritualized Hispanic manner, so in a sense I was right at home. Behind us, trying to obscure his stocky legs while belting out lyrics, was Lanza.
During my dance, I pass my breast within fractions of James Mitchell’s chest and then taunt him by spinning off…and spin off I do at the finale: smack at Mario Lanza, who releases his perilous glass-shattering high note…. After all that strenuous workout and the supple grace and strength demonstrated by James Mitchell, I, Tina, still prefer Mario Lanza (who doesn’t want me, of course). In that regard, the film came closer to being realistic than at any other moment.
Mario Lanza (real name Alfred Arnold Cocozza—changed, of course, by Bill Grady at MGM) was thirty at the time, with a beautiful tenor voice that would later enable him to play his idol, Caruso. Offscreen, he was helpless to his addictions—food and alcohol. Whenever I went into his dressing room, I found him eating gargantuan amounts of food. Mario had an insatiable appetite—he was famous for eating two and a half chickens at one sitting, and I always wondered, Why two and a half—why not quit at two or go on for three?
The very first time I walked in on him on his lunch break, Mario was polishing off his third full-size pizza pie and downing a full bottle of red wine. It was no mystery why his weight fluctuated between 250 pounds and the 160 pounds he needed to weigh to look good on film. Even when he was 160, as I danced around Mario, I noticed that the buttons on his vest were popping.
Kathryn Grayson, his aristocratic costar, complained that he tried to French-kiss her on-screen; she said he pushed his garlic-laden tongue into her mouth when she could not get away. She had to sing despite gagging.
One night, offscreen, drunken, he staggered under Kathryn Grayson’s window and serenaded her in his perfect tenor, “Be My Love”—until her boyfriend came out, bellowing. Mario, though young, was long married and a father of four. He was wild, woolly, and mischievous.
I couldn’t help but like him, and only eight years later I was saddened to read of his death in Rome at age thirty-eight. He had been, as usual, trying to lose weight for a role, and subjected himself to a “twilight sleep” crash weight-loss treatment that kept the dieter under deep sedation. He’d also been taking drafts of the urine of pregnant women. These methods were controversial and were suspected in hastening his sudden death. There may have also been a genetic factor, though, as later two of his four children died at a young age. A few months after Mario’s death, his wife, only thirty-seven, died of “broken heart” syndrome. Within less than a year, their children were orphaned. So sad!
Looking back at the movie now, so light and frothy, it is impossible to imagine what tragedy lay ahead. There was no shadowy premonition, but Mario Lanza did seem to be careening out of control in that all-too-familiar Hollywood way that seems to ensure an untimely end. He was a substance abuser, but his substance wasn’t heroin or cocaine; it was a triple order of family-size pizza with all the extra toppings—but maybe it was just as deadly as an overdose.
Thanks to his recordings, Mario Lanza remains an icon in the opera world. But who can hear his rich tenor and not feel sorrow that he died so young? His movie persona lives on for me, as itdoes for his many fans. In my mind I see him still, jumping up at that banquet scene in The Toast of New Orleans and startling everyone when he announces, “When I feel happy, I have to sing!” And bursting forth with his trademark song, which will also echo forever in my memory: “Be My Love.”
Filming Pagan Love Song was a wonderful experience. I will say that the joy that suffused the film was also true off-camera. Such total euphoria offscreen on a shoot was unusual. Esther Williams,
During my dance, I pass my breast within fractions of James Mitchell’s chest and then taunt him by spinning off…and spin off I do at the finale: smack at Mario Lanza, who releases his perilous glass-shattering high note…. After all that strenuous workout and the supple grace and strength demonstrated by James Mitchell, I, Tina, still prefer Mario Lanza (who doesn’t want me, of course). In that regard, the film came closer to being realistic than at any other moment.
Mario Lanza (real name Alfred Arnold Cocozza—changed, of course, by Bill Grady at MGM) was thirty at the time, with a beautiful tenor voice that would later enable him to play his idol, Caruso. Offscreen, he was helpless to his addictions—food and alcohol. Whenever I went into his dressing room, I found him eating gargantuan amounts of food. Mario had an insatiable appetite—he was famous for eating two and a half chickens at one sitting, and I always wondered, Why two and a half—why not quit at two or go on for three?
The very first time I walked in on him on his lunch break, Mario was polishing off his third full-size pizza pie and downing a full bottle of red wine. It was no mystery why his weight fluctuated between 250 pounds and the 160 pounds he needed to weigh to look good on film. Even when he was 160, as I danced around Mario, I noticed that the buttons on his vest were popping.
Kathryn Grayson, his aristocratic costar, complained that he tried to French-kiss her on-screen; she said he pushed his garlic-laden tongue into her mouth when she could not get away. She had to sing despite gagging.
One night, offscreen, drunken, he staggered under Kathryn Grayson’s window and serenaded her in his perfect tenor, “Be My Love”—until her boyfriend came out, bellowing. Mario, though young, was long married and a father of four. He was wild, woolly, and mischievous.
I couldn’t help but like him, and only eight years later I was saddened to read of his death in Rome at age thirty-eight. He had been, as usual, trying to lose weight for a role, and subjected himself to a “twilight sleep” crash weight-loss treatment that kept the dieter under deep sedation. He’d also been taking drafts of the urine of pregnant women. These methods were controversial and were suspected in hastening his sudden death. There may have also been a genetic factor, though, as later two of his four children died at a young age. A few months after Mario’s death, his wife, only thirty-seven, died of “broken heart” syndrome. Within less than a year, their children were orphaned. So sad!
Looking back at the movie now, so light and frothy, it is impossible to imagine what tragedy lay ahead. There was no shadowy premonition, but Mario Lanza did seem to be careening out of control in that all-too-familiar Hollywood way that seems to ensure an untimely end. He was a substance abuser, but his substance wasn’t heroin or cocaine; it was a triple order of family-size pizza with all the extra toppings—but maybe it was just as deadly as an overdose.
Thanks to his recordings, Mario Lanza remains an icon in the opera world. But who can hear his rich tenor and not feel sorrow that he died so young? His movie persona lives on for me, as itdoes for his many fans. In my mind I see him still, jumping up at that banquet scene in The Toast of New Orleans and startling everyone when he announces, “When I feel happy, I have to sing!” And bursting forth with his trademark song, which will also echo forever in my memory: “Be My Love.”
Filming Pagan Love Song was a wonderful experience. I will say that the joy that suffused the film was also true off-camera. Such total euphoria offscreen on a shoot was unusual. Esther Williams,
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