Catalogue: JASCD 347
Price Code: B
Release Date: 01/01/1999
Bar Code: 604988 03472 1
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Julius LA ROSAMainly Romantic
 
Julius LaRosa was born on 2nd January, 1930,
in Brooklyn, New York City, of Italian parentage. As a youth he admired the
rising star Frank Sinatra but did not imagine following in those footsteps,
expecting instead to join his father's radio repair business. However, upon
joining his High School's Glee Club for the purposes of avoiding some of the
lessons he disliked, LaRosa's aptitude for singing became apparent. Whilst doing
his National Service in the Navy he became involved in various entertainment
shows and this led to him being 'talent-spotted" to appear on Arthur Godfrey's
prestigious radio "Talent Scouts Shows" in 1950. Upon discharge from the Navy,
he became a regular guest the following year, then transferred to television.
This was the early 1950s and TV was still in its infancy: "I guess I was the
first nonentity to appear on television," LaRosa later recalled, and arguably he
was one of the first test cases to prove that TV does not need celebrities, it
creates them. He became the featured 'boy singer' on the Arthur Godfrey Show,
and may have remained so if it were not for his very public sacking on 'live' TV
by Godfrey on 19th October, 1953. Arthur Godfrey had a strict training regime
for all his cast, and LaRosa had been skipping the obligatory ballet lessons
because of other commitments - he had become a client of the GAC booking agency
and had already started a successful recording career on the CADENCE label, run
by Godfrey's Music Director Archie Bleyer.
Price:
£8.99
Quantity:
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