Mario Lanza to be honored at Wildwood Film Festival

Five organizations from Wildwood and Philadelphia have come together to plan a tribute to movie star Mario Lanza as part of the second annual Wildwood by the Sea Film Festival which will be held from Sept. 25-28.
Lanza spent summers in Wildwood when he was a teenager. His family owned a house at 141 West Rio Grande Ave., since torn down, and Lanza, legend has it, worked as a streetcar conductor, singing out loud the names of the streets as the trolley approached them.
“During the planning for our festival, fascinating information and photos about this famous singer’s years in Wildwood came to light from different sources and we decided to bring it all together for one big tribute on the opening night of the festival on Thursday, Sept. 25,” said Paul Russo, festival director and founder.
One of the participants in the Lanza phase of the festival is the George F. Boyer Museum of the Wildwood Historical Society whose president is Anne Vinci. The museum has a collection of Lanza memorabilia and photos from his days in Wildwood and people there have been collaborating with the Mario Lanza Museum in Philadelphia, sharing photos and information. A Lanza section is planned in the addition to the Wildwood museum. Groundbreaking is scheduled for Oct. 1.
Anyone having information and photos relating to Lanza and Wildwood is asked to contact Anne Vinci at 609-523-0277.
The festival will be presented by the Greater Wildwood Hotel and Motel Association, and the opening night program will include the showing of special films about Lanza, some of his recorded music and talks by representatives of his family and the Mario Lanza Institute, which was incorporated in 1962, three years after his death, in order to award scholarships to young vocal students.
Lanza was born Alfredo Arnold Cocozza on Jan. 31, 1921 and, after a highly successful career as a singing movie star, died on Oct. 7, 1959. He adapted his mother’s maiden name, Maria Lanza for his stage name while he was a teenage student at Tanglewood in the Berkshires. Local records here show him as having been a summer visitor in Wildwood at least in 1937 at the age of 16.
Lanza, described by Arturo Toscanini as “the greatest voice of the 20th century,” was considered a superstar in the movies and with recordings during the 1950s. He also presented concerts and was the star of a national radio program.
The Lanza Museum is now at 712 Montrose Street in South Philadelphia, a block and a half from where he was born. The George F. Boyer Museum is at 3907 Pacific Ave. between Spencer and Spicer avenues in Wildwood.