Crooner Damone dies
JARED GALICIA got the Batman bandage removed from his new left ear on Monday — and he said it’s already helping him see better.
The ear, you see, is holding up Jared’s eyeglasses. The sixth-grader from New Jersey will eventually get a bone-anchored hearing aid implanted, but the ear sculpted from rib cartilage during a surgery last month is looking good, and working just fine as a shelf for his glasses. VIC DAMONE, the smooth-singing vocalist behind a bevy of big-time hits in the 1940s and ’50s, has died at 89.
The Brooklyn-born artist was with his family at a Miami Beach, Fla., hospital at the time of his death Sunday.
Damone (photo in 1951) is remembered for acclaimed hits such as “You’re Breaking My Heart,” which rose to the top of the charts in 1949 shortly after its release, as well as “My Heart Cries For You” and “On the Street Where You Live.”
He broke into the music industry as
“It’s easier to watch a soccer game,” Jared, 12, explained. He was born with Treacher Collins syndrome, which affects bone and tissue development of the head. It’s what protagonist Auggie Pullman has in “Wonder,” the bestseller by R.J. Palacio that inspired a recent hit movie.
Jared has had two surgeries so far, with more to come from Dr. Thomas Romo’s Little Baby Face Foundation. a teen in the late 1940s, shortly after meeting another legendary singer, Perry Como, in an elevator at the Paramount Theater, where Damone was working as an usher.
Damone then sang for Como, who encouraged him to continue performing, and by 1947 Damone had landed his first recording contract.
He churned out hits for decades, including the title song of the Cary Grant classic “An Affair to Remember.” His last album came out in 2002.
Overall, Damone recorded more than 2,500 songs . Frank Sinatra, who hit his peak during the same era of music, once described Damone as having “the best pipes in the business.”
Damone appeared in a number of movies and TV shows, including the 1955 movie “Kismet.”
He also hosted a variety program, NBC’s “The Vic Damone Show,” beginning in 1962. The singer is survived by his three daughters and six grandkids. A POACHER was mauled to death and eaten by a pack of lions in South Africa, leaving behind only his head and a few remains.
What was left of the victim was found close to Kruger National Park over the weekend, Agence France-Presse reports.
The remains were found in a private game park.
A hunting rifle was found near the body Saturday, police told the outlet. They were still trying to confirm the victim’s identity.
“It seems the victim was poaching in the game park when he was attacked and killed by lions. They ate his body, nearly all of it, and just left his head and some remains,” a police spokesman told AFP.