Perry Como ~ An Early Biography
The Early Years
Perry Como was
born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, on May 18, 1912. He's
the seventh son, of a seventh son, legendary marks of
good luck. Lady luck is a gal he often quotes, although
his fans believe in a thing called talent.
Born to Italian
immigrants, Pietro and Lucia Como, who settled in the
small Pennsylvania mining town, he was the first of their
thirteen children to be a citizen of the United States by
birth.
It's a well
known bit of show business fact that Perry's first
ambition was to be the best barber in Canonsburg. At 14,
he was apprenticed to Steve Fragapane who taught him the
trade of the shears, and Perry soon opened his own shop
as an after-school money maker. With two assistants and a
guitar he turned it into a profitable enterprise which he
took over on a full-time basis after high school
graduation. The miners would come out of the pits on
Saturday night, black with coal dust, eager for
everything from a shave to a manicure and Perry built his
little shop into a $125 a week net profit. It was a small
town store where he knew all his customers by name, where
it wasn't strange for a barber to sing while clipping
hair or stop to strum a guitar because he was in the
mood. Life was good, his business was good, he was the
local talent in the community, and in 1933 Perry went to
Cleveland on a well-earned vacation.
1933
While in
Cleveland his friends urged him to audition for Freddy
Carlone's band a band known to the local spots throughout
Ohio. Doing it more as a concession to his friends than a
desire to get into show business, Perry auditioned for
Carlone and returned to Canonsburg. A few weeks later he
received a wire urgently requesting that he join the band
as soon as possible. It was a hard decision for the young
barber for the shop was bringing in a $125 a week. The
depression years had just begun and security was a
hopeless word. But his parents convinced him that he
could always pick up where he left off should the singing
business fold. And on this reservation Perry Como joined
the ranks of young boys who sang with bands for $28 a
week.
On July 31,
1933, he married his childhood sweetheart, Roselle
Belline.
During the next
two years Perry built up a following in the Cleveland
area and became a small name among the guys and dolls who
paused to listen in front of the bandstand. He had to
learn poise, the intricacies of sheet music, and adjust
to the strange nighttime life of a musician. They played
such spots as the Crystal Slipper and Danceland Ballroom
the kind of places that have their counterparts
throughout the country. It was during these early days in
Cleveland that the young novice met the great Russ
Columbo who was then playing at the Golden Pheasant with
his orchestra. Russ was the king of the crooners in those
days and Perry and he became friends, never dreaming that
one day his recording of Columbo's famous
"Prisoner of Love" would
become one of the biggest sellers in music history.
1936
Ted Weems and
his band were in their prime in the mid-thirties and when
the young singer was brought to his attention, he offered
Perry a job. His salary was an overwhelming $50 a week.
Bands were hot. The Millers, the Dorseys, the Goodmans
were the No. 1 box office attractions and the only chance
a singer had was to draw a spot with a big band. The
Weems tie-up marked Perry's first tentative steps toward
the top. It was with Weems that Perry was introduced to
the nerve-wracking grind of one-night stands throughout
the country. He made his radio debut and the name "Perry
Como" was now on record labels
as "vocalist."
There was usually a gal singer with the group, one of
whom was Marvel Maxwell, later known to moviegoers as
Marilyn Maxwell. With Weems, Perry reached Broadway and
the great presentation houses. He recalls one momentous
engagement at the New York Strand when the band shared
the bill with Ann Sheridan who, in those days, was riding
a crest as the nation's "oomph"
girl. As far as Perry Como was concerned, this was the "big-time!"
1942
In '42 the
Weems band broke up and Perry was weary of traveling. His
home life was a haphazard thing. Since the birth of their
first child, Ronnie, in 1940, Roselle had been forced to
remain in Canonsburg. He was concerned about his future
and eager to live a normal quiet life and this meant a
good location for another barber shop. The long distance
phone calls and wires started pouring in from booking
agents, managers and band leaders, but Perry turned down
the offers and continued to negotiate with a local real
estate agent for a store lease. General Artists
Corporation called while Perry was dickering about the
shop rental. Their deal was his own sustaining radio show
at $100 a week and an RCA Victor recording contract. He
would be a sole singer and not part of a band package.
But it was Roselle who persuaded him with the old
clincher, "You can always get
another barber shop if it doesn't work out!"
1943
It wasn't long
before Perry hit New York as a personality. The singer
craze was on and Frank Sinatra, who was then holding
court at the Riobamba nightclub, had started a new surge
of shrieks, sighs and swoons! Perry was booked into the
Versailles and Copacabana nightclubs. He stopped the show
each night. Word got around that the Copa would need
rubber walls to hold the Perry Como stampede. Then came
the Paramount Theatre engagement and the teenagers stood
for hours in lines that circled the block three deep.
Those who had known him as Ted Weems' vocalist woke up
one morning to find that Perry Como was one of the
hottest properties in show business.
Records
Simultaneous
with his nightclub and theatre success, Perry's
recordings started hitting the market. His first RCA
Victor record, "Goodbye
Sue," was waxed in 1943. In
1945 he established a record by selling more than a
million copies of "Till the End
of Time." During a single week
in 1946 four-million Como recordings were turned out,
surpassing the output of any artist in the history of
record-making to that time.
It has been
estimated that on a yearly basis, Como sells more than
four million records annually. A great many of his
platters have sold more than a million copies each. A
record sales-total rare in music annals ditto his long
association with one company, RCA Victor.
Movies
In 1944 Perry
went to Hollywood where he co-starred with Vivian Blaine,
Phil Silvers and Carmen Miranda in his first movie for 20th
Century Fox titled "Something
for the Boys." In 1946 he
followed with "Doll Face"
and "If I'm Lucky."
In 1948 he was chosen to appear with the all-star cast of
MGM's musical "Words and
Music."
Radio
& TV
Chesterfield Cigarettes was
Perry's first radio sponsor and remained with him through the years, a
relationship unusual in a business of short-lived romances, until his
switch to NBC in September of 1955. After a year of sustaining ( in
1943 ) Chesterfield signed Perry in 1944 to a fifteen minute show five
nights a week on NBC. In 1945 it was changed to a thrice-weekly stanza
and during the 1949-50 season Perry and Chesterfield did a half hour
radio show and a half hour television show weekly. He switched to full
time television in 1950 for CBS-TV, thrice weekly,
Monday-Wednesday-Friday, at 7:45 to 8:00 p.m. His casual manner, sharp
showmanship, and good looks took to television as if it were made for
him. Surveys boasted that the fifteen minute Perry Como Show was
viewed in approximately fifteen million homes.
On August 31,
1953, Perry returned to radio with a taped version of his
fifteen minute television show. Sponsored again by
Chesterfield, it was heard on the Mutual Broadcasting
System, Monday-Wednesday-Friday, at 7:45 p.m. and then
switched over to CBS on the same days at 9:00 p.m.
In May of 1955
Perry signed an unprecedented firm 12 year contract with
NBC-TV. The deal called for a one-hour show to be seen on
Saturdays at 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. The Perry Como Show had
its premiere on September 17, 1955. Its success was
nothing less than phenomenal and Perry's talents as an
all round showman were confirmed.
Perry was
consistently voted the most popular male vocalist in
polls throughout the United States and with the advent of
his new TV show, he quickly became the most popular
television personality. His fan clubs covered the globe.
Despite the fact that Perry didn't rely on cross-country
tours, theatre engagements, nightclubs and movies, all of
which he claimed might keep him away from his family, he
joined the chosen few known as all-time greats in show
business.
Perry received the 1953
Interfaith Award for his "unselfish devotion, his humanitarian
endeavors . . . and wholehearted service in the advancement of the
principles of Interfaith"
Perry
Como at Home
Perry met
Roselle Belline at a wiener roast on the banks of
Chartiers Creek in Pennsylvania. She was a local girl.
They were married July 31, 1933, when he was 21 years
old. For many years they lived in a rambling house at
Sands Point, Long Island, with three children: Ronnie,
born in 1940, David, born in 1946, and Terri, born in
1947. Their home had a garden, an outdoor grill for steaks and a pool table. Their home life had the earmarks
of any suburban family.
Both Perry and
Roselle have received one of the highest honors of the
Catholic Church. In a ceremony presided over by Cardinal Spellman, they were made Knight Commander and Lady
Commander of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher
of Jerusalem. Another great moment in Perry's life
occurred in the summer of '58 when he, Roselle and the
three children were privileged to have an audience with
His Holiness, the late Pope Pius XII.
The trip to
Rome was the first overseas for the Comos and Perry's
first chance to appreciate his new international
prominence. The television show was broadcast in at least
a dozen foreign countries. The Como face and voice were
fast becoming as familiar abroad as they were at home.
As a tribute in
recognition of Perry, his hometown, Canonsburg,
Pennsylvania, changed the name of Third Street, where he
used to have his barber shop, to Perry Como Avenue. The
dedication was tremendous and the schools declared a
holiday. Only inadvertently did Perry reveal this during
a press interview years after the event. Even though it
was a great honor for his family, he didn't think anyone
else would be interested.
When Perry was
named "Personality of the
Year" by the Variety Club of
Washington, D.C., the award was made at a formal dinner
and he had to buy a new tuxedo. Perhaps because he had to
wear one every night for almost ten years, during his
band days, it was purchased under protest. During his
visit to Washington he sang in a child's polio ward at a
city hospital. He spoke at length with a four year old
patient and later learned that the boy's parents were
poor and unable to meet the medical expenses. At dinner
that night he told the audience about the child and
offered to auction off his new tuxedo with proceeds to
the youngster. The tuxedo brought in $2500.
In 1957 Perry
was again obliged to don a black tie on the occasion of
the Friers Club testimonial dinner. As the Friars' 1957 "Man
of the Year" he was the
delighted honor guest and entertained by many of show
business's top names, toasted by an overflow crowd in the
grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria.
PRESS & INFORMATION
RCA VICTOR RECORDS
MURRAY HILL 9-7200
155 EAST 24TH STREET, NEW YORK ( CIRCA
1957 )
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