Modern Screen (Jan-Dec 1960)

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iself was to describe as 'a gift given ne by God so that its sound and feeling ht be passed on to others. . . ."' ,'ithin that next hour, Mario Lanza ozza (soon to drop his last name) was his way. [idway during the audition. Pasternak the other producer had summoned e Scharv. then talent and production d of MGM. to Stage 12 to hear the jig man sing. chary came, listened, and then asked io to come to his office for a talk, "hen the talk was over. Mario rushed n Schary's office — past Schary. Paster. the other producer, his agent — to a sing lot just outside the studio, where wife of four years, Elizabeth Hicks. lovely dark-eyed girl he'd married 945. when he was in the Army, sat in mall rented Chevy waiting for him. 3etty," he called, as he apnroached her, nade it. . . . Fm in. ... It happened." he girl in the car smiled nervously, excited to say anything. '. sang for them." Mario said, opening door and getting in alongside her. "I % — and they took me to their offices they said. 'Man. we want you for ores, lots of pictures.* And to show they meant it, they gave me this." e reached into his pocket and pulled a check. [Ten thousand dollars," he said. "You it? . . . Just to sign with them, and 1 nobody else." e handed his wife the cheek. jo ahead," he said. "Take it in vomers. Feel it. It's real. It's good. Betty, i; as good as the bad we've known has n bad. . . . It's a house. Betty. The n-payment, anyway. . . . And it's food >f out-of-cans food anymore, but good I. call-the-butcherand -ask -for -steak i of food. . . . And it's a family for us, :y; kids, like we've always wanted. I a career. And a whole new life!" e took a handkerchief from his pocket, dere," he said, laughing through his tears, " — don't cry. . . . This is the nning of everything we've wanted, ring for. 3on't cry, Betty," he said, putting his around her. "You'll get tears on the :k, and itH blur." £ laughed some more. it she did not. Don't cry, come on," he said. "People supposed to cry at the end of someg. And this is the beginning, "he beginning. . . ." , VENING IN 1954: It s all over," he said, lg back, despondently. » looked around the room. The room. room, was only one-twentieth of the pe — the biggest, the most lavishly dec =d and furnished house in BelAir; castle," the rest of Hollywood called ■ looked around the room, empty now, !pt for himself and his Betty, had been crowded, just a little while er. with reporters, with a butler servchampagne and Scotch, with three is passing 'round the heaps of hors nvres. with Mario standing near the 3. smiling away as if he didn't have a y in the world, making fight of what ■ened that day. 3 Metro fired me this afternoon," his ! had boomed, " — so what? So they me lax. imtrustworthy. because I cost money holding up their Student ?e while I tried to lose some weight, they wanted, insisted on. and while I to get some other affairs in order. ' forget at Metro the money I made hem these past five years? They fort-iat The Great Caruso alone made een-million dollars in its first -ear. for them? Look at all I've done for them! "Yes." he'd nodded, "they forget. But so what? They have fired me and Fm free now, free to make the kind of pictures I want to make. For other studios. They all want me — Paramount. Warners. Universal. They all want me!" He'd gone on. his voice lowering a little. "Most of you people here know me pretty well, right?" he'd asked. "For five years now you'd been writing about me in your newspapers and your magazines. You've written about the good things that have happened to me — my success, my popularity, my wonderful life with my wife and children. You've written, too. about the not-so-good things — the trouble I've had with my studio and some of the stars out here, the trouble I've had with my weight, the trouble with false friends who've misled me and who've squandered most of the money I've earned. "WelL now I want you to write this in your newspapers and magazines, word for word: "The rumors that Mario Lanza is through are false. "The rumors that he has pushed his voice too far. and that it is going, are false. ■"The rumors that he is a troublesome no-good who enjoys making life hard for anybody he works with are false." He'd raised a glass he was holding. "To the future." he'd said. " — right here in Hollywood." "To the future — in Hollywood." the reporters who'd been listening said back. NEXT MONTH: Watch for LOUELLA'S big story on DEBBIE! And they had all drunk. And laughed. And slapped his back, wishing him luck. And then, after a while, they had gone "It's all over." Mario said now. the big smile no longer on his lips, the room quiet, empty. "I'm finished here. Betty." "Why do you say that?" his wife asked, shaking her head. "Who am I kidding?" Mario said. "I try to talk it into myself. I try to convince others. "Everybody wants me.' I brag — " "Your fans want you," his wife said, "the people want you." "But not the studios," Mario said. "They're wan of me. All of them. They're afraid to take a chance with me. I'm a tiger to them, untamed and dangerous. They're afraid of me . . . They're businessmen, with their problems. I'm an artist, with mine. How can we ever understand one another?" His wife said nothing for a while. Then, softly, she asked, "What do you want to do, Mario?" "Buy a ranch," he said, quickly, nodding, "a beautiful and lonely ranch, far away, in Montana maybe, or in Arizona. And work hard all day. out in the open, for you and for our children. And then at night, when the sun goes down, come back to the house for a big supper, with no worries about my weight — just eating and getting as heavy as God intended me to get. with no worries about the cameras, the producers, the directors, the wardrobe men with their tape measures around my waist . . . And then, after supper. I would sing. In the living room, you at the piano. me standing there behind you. the children sitting around listening if they want — and me, I would sing, just singing for the love of it. for — " He stopped. "Someday maybe." he said, "when we have some money again, when Fve paid these debts I owe. we can do that. hah. Betty?" "And for now?" his wife asked. "For now well go to Europe." Mario sal-*. "They want me for some pictures in Italy. There they still do want me. . . . We can five in Rome. . . . All right?" Betty nodded — this woman about whom it has been said: "She understood and appreciated Mario as no one else in the world ever could. Through good times and bad. she rode right along with him. this wife, sweetheart, manager and mother to a big lost boy." "All right?" Mario asked again. And Betty nodded again. "Of course," she said, "if vou think it's best." Mario sighed. "Who knows what's best anymore?" he said. ROME — 1958 — FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH MARIO: "Everything is fine. I am riding high again. Hollywood counted me out. I took the long count — three-and-a-halfyears, no work. I cried on the ropes. But I got up and started belting out songs and pictures again, and I am going back to the top of the heap. Man. I'm living. And I want to go on forever. On. On. On. Go. Go. Go. Don't ask me why. but I would like to live forever. . . . Maybe because I and my wife and my family have never been so happy!" ROME— THE CLINIC OF SANTA GIULIA— OCTOBER 7, 1S59: He had lied to Betty, that day a little over a week earlier. He'd told her that the dieting he'd been undergoing these past couple of months had weakened him. that he was coming down with a bad cold, that the doctor had suggested a rest in the hospital. He'd said nothing of the truth to her — that the dieting had weakened him to the point where he was feeling pains around his heart, that the doctor had examined his heart and suggested a long period of tests and observation. He had lied so well that Betty hadn't been the least bit concerned about him these past days, other than that he was away in the hospital, and that she and the children missed him. He had lied so well that even now, this Wednesday morning, as she sat there alongside his bed. holding his hand, as she listened to him speak the strange and melancholy words, she found herself smiling. "You won't like what I'm going to talk about now. Betty-," Mario said. "I know that. But I must. . . . When I die, my Betty— " "Yes, forty years from now." Betty said, "fifty years, when you die — " "Whenever I die." Mario said, "I want — I want you to do certain things for me." 'And that is?" Betty asked. "First of all," Mario said. "I want you to be very brave, to promise me that you won't cry too much." "I'll probably be too old to raise a tear by that time." Betty said. "That you will take care of the children, continue to take care of them, with as much love and care as you always have." Mario went on. "They'll all be married." Betty said, "and have children enough of their own to take care of." "And." Mario said. "I want — " "Mario, that's enough." Betty said, squeezing his hand, her smile tentative now. nearly gone. "That at my funeral." he said, "you will ask the priest if he'll give permission to