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.
The most
controversial of all incidents, however, 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.
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