For a Waukegan electronics engineer with an unusual voice, life has begun to play like an old Mario Lanza movie, but whether the title should be ”Son of Student Prince” or ”The Great Pretender” depends on whom you talk to.
Although official verification of Victor Lanza`s claim that he is the son of singer Mario Lanza has been stalled by his failure to disclose essential information about his birth, his show ”Memories of Mario” has been playing to fans of the legendary tenor at restaurants and lounges throughout the Chicago area.
Two-and-a-half years after going public as heir to the fabled Lanza voice, Victor Lanza still maintains that he is not interested in a singing career.
”This is just my personal tribute to my father,” he said in Argentinean-accented English. ”Nothing extravagant has come out of it, and that`s fine.”
At 47, with many years` experience as an engineer, Lanza says he has no dreams of following Mario Lanza`s lead to stardom. His blossoming singing career, in fact, seems almost accidental, the result of an evening out with old college chums, an open mike in a piano lounge and a chorus or two of ”O Sole Mio.”
Don Komar was playing the organ in Positano`s restaurant in Prospect Heights that night 2 1/2 years ago when Lanza called for the key of G and took the mike.
Komar said, ”He got to the end, and all the chefs came out of the kitchen. The whole place stopped. Stood still. Nobody talked. The owner, Tom
(Capparelli), came out of the kitchen and said, `What the hell is that?`
This glorious voice came out of this guy.”
Lanza was then divorced and living in California, the non-custodial father of two children. His work brought him to Lake County almost weekly, and each time he returned to sing with Komar. Komar knew the singer only as
”Victor.”
When he finally pressed for a last name and heard ”Lanza,” Komar said he was astonished: ”I said, `You`re putting me on. Any relation?` He said,
`Yeah, I`m his son.` ”
Simple to say, but a tough reality for Victor Lanza, who claims to be the illegitimate son of Mario Lanza. Although he declined to permit a reporter to examine his birth certificate for this story, he says he was born in New Jersey in July 1944 and that records state that his natural parents were Maria Margelli, age 26, and Alfred Arnold Cocozza (the birth name of Mario Lanza), age 23.
A search of birth records for the year 1944 failed to confirm Victor Lanza`s assertion, according to Betty Pullen of the New Jersey Bureau of Vital Statistics in Trenton.
Lanza maintains that his home birth was not recorded in New Jersey, but seven months later in another state, which he declined to name, as his mother prepared to leave the country with him.
Lanza said, ”I was up in the air for a while. Because of the Italian community and the church, the family didn`t want to bring it (the birth) up for a while. I have been the victim of (that attitude), and they are gone, but I am here. My family made a decision that was beneficial to them in that time, and I am paying for it and will pay all my life, because they tried to protect their own name.”
Military records from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis show that although Alfred Cocozza/Mario Lanza served in the Army until Victor Lanza would have been 6 months old, the child was never claimed as a dependent.
When Victor was born, Alfred ”Freddie” Cocozza was already performing under the masculine variant of his mother`s maiden name, Maria Lanza.
(Mario would not change his name legally until 1952, Victor said, and when he did, he persuaded the boy`s mother to change Victor`s name also. Victor retained the Cocozza name: His driver`s license reads ”Victor Cocozza Lanza.”)
Lanza and Cocozza were common names in Philadelphia`s Little Italy neighborhood, called South Philadelphia, where Freddie/Mario grew up. His parents were first-generation Americans of Italian descent who loved opera music and pushed their son to develop his extraordinary voice.
Jack Cocozza, now of Las Vegas, lived around the corner from his cousin Freddie during the `30s, when both were in school. In a phone interview, he reminisced about his relative:
”His grandfather gave him that name, Mario Lanza. His grandfather had him practicing all day long. That`s the Cocozza family; that`s one of the rituals. Son, daughter, anybody, they`d try to put them on the piano, the violin. Music was a big part of the family.”
Jack Cocozza said he had never heard of his cousin`s son Victor, but he did not discount the possibility: ”There were a lot of rumors around that he had children in South Philly. It could be; he was no angel, and men are men.” He remembers his cousin singing in a little Italian restaurant and then
”eating two bowls of spaghetti without batting an eye. He could eat, God bless him. He was a real hustler, nobody`s fool, a lot of fun. He was devilish, I mean, really devilish, and good with the girls. I knew this guy would never go hungry; he was aggressive. I guess it was that Italian environment.”
Cocozza knew his cousin well. Freddie/Mario by age 21 had broken out of South Philadelphia and headed for New York, where his powerful tenor voice had already attracted attention.
There, in the office of opera singer Ezio Pinza, he met Maria Margelli. Victor Lanza described Margelli as a short, dark-haired woman several years older than Mario Lanza. She had an easygoing manner and a background similar to that of the young singer.
”They started being friends,” Victor said, ”and then they created a relationship and were together for three years. It was during the war, and it was tough, but it was part of life.”
Margelli was not a singer, but Victor attributes Mario`s later success to her early influence and help. Victor plans to write a book about her role in Mario`s career.
In 1942, the same year he met Margelli, Mario Lanza was drafted into the Army Air Corps.
After basic training, he attracted national attention singing in service shows. One critic called him ”the Caruso of the Air Force.”
Margelli joined Lanza whenever possible, Victor said, and after Victor`s birth, she and the baby followed him to California, where Warner Brothers and MGM fought to sign up the promising star.
About that time, Mario met the woman he would marry, Betty Hicks, originally of Evanston and the sister of an Army buddy of Lanza`s.
Victor said: ”My mother had helped my father do a lot of things. Unconditionally, she had helped him. The day my father decided he didn`t need her anymore, and he just put her on the side, it was very painful to her. That was one of the reasons that she decided to leave the country.”
Rejected by her lover, Margelli fled the United States for Argentina, where she lived with relatives and raised her only child, said Victor. She never married.
”When I was growing up, they tried to tell me what a father is,” said Victor Lanza. He said his Cocozza grandparents sent pictures of Mario and other mementos, but Margelli never permitted Mario Lanza records in her home and never encouraged Victor to sing.
”She did collect old magazines that she would buy to find out how he was doing,” Victor said. She was very hurt when she heard of all the problems he was having. In 1970 she brought (the magazines) to me; I still have them.”
In the meantime, Mario Lanza was hailed as a new Caruso by both Hollywood and serious music critics. He signed a lucrative contract with MGM and starred in ”That Midnight Kiss,” ”Toast of New Orleans” and ”The Great Caruso.” His opera recordings sold in the millions and became instant jukebox hits. He was often mobbed in public by zealous fans who ripped at his clothing for souvenirs.
He had also started a family with his wife. It would eventually include two daughters and two sons.
Tumultuous events, but on a first trip back to California from Argentina as a 7-year-old in 1951, Victor said he was more excited about seeing the movie ”Peter Pan” than about meeting the man he claims was his father.
That first encounter was awkward, he said, with Victor and Mario seated side-by-side on a couch, with other family members ringed all around in chairs: ”I remember thinking, `Why does everybody have to be here?` He spoke in Spanish to me, but his Spanish wasn`t too good, and then he tried to speak English, but I wasn`t too good at that. He had brought some presents to me, some candies, and I was excited, but at the same time kind of confused.”
During later trips to California, Victor said, Mario took him to visit his Cocozza grandparents who lived in the hills above Los Angeles. His grandmother served the boy pizza with sugar: ”The first time in my life I ate pizza with sugar on it, and she asked, `Is it sweet enough for you?` ”
His slow-talking grandfather sat beside him under a backyard fig tree:
”I almost got sick eating figs. He used to speak very slow; I`d wait and think, `What is he going to say?` ”
Victor said Mario brought him gifts and tried hard, perhaps too hard, to please: ”He tried to entertain me, to provide me with attention from a man that I didn`t have before. He would talk to me like a friend and try to be funny, but his jokes just didn`t (work). I thought, `I want to be his friend, but he doesn`t need to buy me.` I thought he felt he owed something to me.”
Despite the awkward moments, Victor said he never doubted Mario Lanza`s love: ”We didn`t have enough time to connect a lot, but it was very relaxed when we were together. He hugged me many times. He didn`t say `I love you,`
but it wasn`t necessary.
”I get a little sentimental when I wish we could do things together, talk together. I know if he had the opportunity to be alive again, he would do it completely differently. At the end, he knew what was happening, but it was too late.”
The last time he saw Mario Lanza, Victor said, was in New York in 1957, and he was shocked by his appearance: ”He looked terrible; he was very sick. I knew all the problems, and the family had tried to prepare me for how he would look. When he passed away, I took it very hard.”
The star`s downward spiral had been apparent for several years. Newspapers and magazines of that era were filled with stories of Lanza`s tempestuous behavior, his multi-million-dollar debts, his bouts of gorging and dieting.
Victor said he was in Argentina when the singing star died in Italy on Oct., 7, 1959. Mario Lanza`s death was variously attributed to heart attack, phlebitis, even Mafia intervention. Betty Hicks Lanza died five months later; in news stories of the era, her family blamed her death on ”a broken heart.” After the Lanza estate was settled and the debts paid, there was little left of his fortune. Victor said he made no claims on it, but he added, ”I had some funds in my life that I never knew where they come from. I used all those funds to go to college.”
His mother, who died in 1974, never explained the money.
But there was more to the Lanza legacy than cash. There was the voice, and there were the fans who loved it and apparently still do, judging from the numbers who show up to hear Victor Lanza sing Mario`s biggest hits.
Constance Markey of Chicago was a child when she first heard Mario Lanza sing. Now professor of Italian at DePaul University in Chicago, Markey said,
”I fell in love with him. I`m not Italian. If it hadn`t been for Mario in all those silly movies, I loved them so much I had to study Italian to learn what he was saying.”
Markey, her 14-year-old daughter, Lia, and nearly 200 others turned out for a recent dinner-show performance at Mareva`s restaurant in Chicago, starring Victor Lanza and soprano Donna Sadlicka in ”Memories of Mario.”
The audience greeted him with cheers, and he and Sadlicka sang a nostalgic repertoire of Lanza trademark songs, including ”Because You`re Mine,” ”One Alone,” ”Golden Days.”
Later Markey described her reaction to his performance as ”not terribly enthusiastic.” She said, ”I think a lot of people had him confused with his father. In fact, I wondered how authentic that is.”
But even if Victor should not be Mario`s son, Markey said, ”It really doesn`t matter. He accomplished what he set out to do. He isn`t Mario Lanza, but people were satisfied.”
For Markey, the show still held charms: ”I think that the magic of the moment was that we were all 10 again; there were all those Mario Lanza fans, and it wasn`t really different from being an Elvis fan, except it was a different kind of fan. Everybody was there to recapture that special moment in their life.”
Joan Paster of Chicago heard it differently. She said, ”I thought there was a marked resemblance in the voice, but I think he needs to be just a little more professional. He seemed ill at ease at times.”
Dorothy Zidlicky, who came from Riverside to hear Lanza perform, faulted the acoustics of the room. She said, ”That low ceiling was difficult for him. But even so, his high notes were really comparable to his dad`s gusto.”
”He is a good artist. Don`t misunderstand me-he has a lovely voice-but he doesn`t hit me the same way his father did,” said Sarah Zelzer, also in the audience at Mareva`s.
She and her late husband, Chicago impresario Harry Zelzer, befriended young Mario Lanza when he came to Chicago shortly after his marriage to Betty Hicks. Zelzer said she was surprised when she heard after the show that Victor was not a child of that marriage.
Longtime Mario Lanza fan Etta Wleklinski of Niles first heard Victor sing a year and a half ago at a Morton Grove restaurant, Eugene`s at the Fireside. She said, ”I was sitting there listening, and the tears were rolling down my face, without my even realizing it. It was as though his father was reincarnated.”
Wleklinski was so moved that she offered to organize a Victor Lanza fan club, which now has about 10 charter members and a mailing list of 850. She sees a strong physical resemblance to Mario also: ”Even the way he walks, his body configuration, the way he holds his hands. If you`ve seen Mario`s movies, you`ll recognize (those features in Victor).”
Don Komar, who first coaxed the ”Lanza” out of Victor a couple of years ago, has accompanied a parade of singing stars on stage and television during his 44 years in show business: Buddy DeVito of the Harry James band, Hildegarde, Gloria Van and Monique Van Vooren. He sized up Victor Lanza with an experienced eye:
”I am amazed at the power that he gets, that combination of range and power. I think that his father was a better singer than he is, but I think Victor has a better voice. His father had more presence. Victor is an unassuming, shy guy with virtually no stage presence. That`s one of the reasons I like him: He`s shy on stage. He doesn`t blow his own horn.
”He can learn stage presence, and he will. The only thing Victor needs is more experience. With his looks-he looks and sounds just like his dad-I think there is a definite market out there.”
Lanza still sings at Positano`s occasionally. On a recent Friday night, he obliged a request for ”O Sole Mio” and then tried to answer a listener who asked, ”Why are you doing this?”
”To make some kind of memorial, a tribute to him (Mario),” Victor said. ”It`s a very personal thing. If somebody doesn`t like it, that`s fine, but I will do what I will do. I will always be an engineer, but this is my time to sing.”
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For more information on the Victor Lanza Fan Club, contact Etta Wleklinski, 312-725-4234.
