Vic Damone

“Romance is my life,” said Vic Damone, “and music and love are together.” Born Vito Rocco Farinola in 1928 in Bensonhurst, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, Vic Damone delivered fruit and sang in his church choir before landing the job that turned his life around — working as a theatre usher. One night he worked a Frank Sinatra concert as was mesmerized by “his phrasing, his breathing, his tone, his timbre. Everything.” Having discovered a role model, Damone decided to try making it as a supper club crooner. He won an Arthur Godfrey “Talent Scouts” competition in 1946 and the next year had both a contract with Mercury Records and his own radio program. Fifty hits followed through the end of the ‘60s, as well as movie roles and jobs hosting three different TV series. Vic’s liquid baritone and serene delivery made him one of the most popular of all postwar romanticists. “I’m a ballad singer,” said Damone, “and I guess I always will be.” Frank Sinatra himself credited Vic with having “the best pipes in the business.”