Mario Calzoni was born in 1946, in
Scumona, Italy. He began touring the world in 1967. He was an
instant hit. Being famous for trashing hotel rooms in the style of a
rock star and for stopping up many a toilet, he was banned from
performing in a number of cities throughout the world.
But the most controversial of
all incidents was probably the fiasco that had taken place at the
1983 Crammy awards. First, he was announced as the winner for the
opera album of the year. He waddled his way to the stage (he was
morbidly obese) and accepted the award. Then he gave a wonderful
acceptance speech, thanking everyone involved with the record. When,
all of a sudden, he was interrupted and told that it was a misprint
and that the real winner was Mary O. Malvoni. That's when the chaos
began. He threw the award into the audience and it struck an elderly
woman on the head. Then he punched the unsuspecting bearer of the
bad news right in the face. He then proceeded to unzip his pants and
urinated on the stage. Three security guards grabbed him and pulled
him off the stage.
Mario made a public
apology two days later and to show that there were no hard feelings,
he paid a hospital visit to the elderly woman who had been struck on
the head with the award. He gave her an autographed copy of his most
recent album and free tickets to his next show. Unfortunately, she
died of complications two days later. The family didn't file a law
suit because, after all, he did say he was sorry.
Mario's second love (as if we
didn't know) was food. He opened a chain of pizzerias called
Gluttinos. But when dozens of people died from food poisoning, the
entire chain was forced to shut down. It was then that his music
career was taken off the backburner and pursued with vigor. He
announced that he would be touring with two other overweight opera
singers, Luigi Flabarotti and Georgio Riccotto, for the three tonors
tour. At first, it was a huge success. But eventually, interest
waned and the money they brought in wasn't nearly enough to pay the
astronomical costs of feeding the three lards, I mean, stars. So
Mario went solo.
In 1990, Mario became heavily
involved in philanthropic undertakings. He began his "Feed the
world" tour. Unfortunately, the proceeds were barely enough to feed
Mario. Very litle was left to help feed the rest of the world.
Plagued by health problems, Mario was forced to retire in 1994. He
had three strokes and one heart attack in 1995 and then another
stroke and two heart attacks in 1996. But as tough as he was at
shrugging off his various strokes and heart attacks, he finally died
on May 6th, 2000. It seems that Mario, in spite of being very fat
and unsightly, loved to swim in the nude. While swimming in his pool
at his recently purchased beach house, Mario was accidentally
harpooned by local fishermen who had apparently mistaken him for a
beached whale and an easy kill. The Opera world will miss him
dearly. So will the many pizzerias he regularly visited. |
