New Idol

Mario Lanza is a curly-haired young (29) movie singer who confesses breezily that he once scraped the label off a Caruso record and substituted one with his own name on it to get a part in an Air Force show. He can afford to be breezy now. After his first two movie roles (in That Midnight Kiss and The Toast of New Orleans'), Hollywood has cast Tenor Lanza as The Great Caruso, and Hollywood is inclined to feel that Caruso is doing well to get his name in the title. Meanwhile, so far as the new crop of U.S. bobby-soxers is concerned, Frank Sinatra might as well be a contemporary of Hans Sachs (1494-1576). All in all, Philadelphia-born Mario (real name: Alfred Arnold Cocozza) is just about the hottest singer to hit the sound tracks in a decade.

Last week, on his first major concert tour, Mario reached Pittsburgh for an appearance with the Pittsburgh Symphony. The town rocked with the same kind of adolescent adoration that had just left Richmond and Baltimore reeling.

"Shut Up!" Mario no sooner checked into his hotel than the phone calls from bobby-soxers began. Some of them had come 60 miles just to get his autograph. Syria Mosque, where Mario was to sing, is the biggest hall in Pittsburgh (3,800 seats), but it had been sold out 48 hours after the ticket window opened. Edward Specter, manager of the symphony, threw precedent to the winds and sold tickets to Mario's warmup rehearsal the afternoon before. They went nearly as fast.

At the rehearsal, Conductor Vladimir Bakaleinikoff had a hard time with Mario's squealing admirers. At one point Lanza started a stampede by throwing his handkerchief into the crowd. Cried Bakaleinikoff, when the uproar subsided for a moment: "This is a symphony orchestra. You must be verrry quiet--shut up!"

Lights Out. Some of Pittsburgh's regular concertgoers were among the 4,100 who jammed into the act on the big night. In arias from Rigoletto and Pagliacci, Mario proved to the cynics' surprise that he really has a voice. The ring and power of his high notes almost makes up for his lack of real musical taste. Called back by cheer after cheer, Mario gave them as an encore his current bestselling tune, Be My Love. That really blew a fuse; at any rate, the lights went out. The police provided an extra squad to get Mario out of the Mosque and back to his hotel. As he was leaving, a young woman bumped him and promptly fainted. Mario caught her and handed her to a cop.

Ambitious Mario wants to sing in opera at La Scala next October. But before that time, he has more towns awaiting him on his concert swing: Columbus, Philadelphia, Miami Beach and 14 others. And he is due back in Hollywood in May to make another movie.

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