Daily Mail

Sad death of super Mario

- Compiled by Charles Legge

QUESTION What was the twilight sleep treatment claimed to have killed opera singer Mario Lanza?

In THE late Forties and early Fifties, the American-Italian tenor and Hollywood actor Mario Lanza (1921-59) was a bigger star than any pop singer of today.

Because of his metabolism, stocky build, love of rich Italian food and alcohol and the demands of his profession, Lanza was the ultimate yo-yo dieter.

He believed he sang better when he was big, but was expected to be slim on screen. The music for one of his films would be recorded several weeks before shooting began and Lanza would lose up to 3st in a short space of time.

He would run, swim and do press-ups and weight-training under the watch of fitness expert Terry Robinson, eat only small portions of healthy food and not drink alcohol.

However, he lacked the self-discipline to maintain this spartan lifestyle.

As Lanza moved into his 30s, he found it harder to lose weight. A medical examinatio­n in July 1957 revealed he had very high blood pressure, liver damage, stress, phlebitis (a painful condition in which a blood clot blocks one of the veins just beneath the skin) and coronary damage.

He began to take extreme measures. On one diet, he was injected with hCG (human chorionic gonadotrop­in, extracted from the urine of pregnant women) and allowed to eat only 500 calories a day.

In preparatio­n for filming For The First Time (1959), Lanza checked in to the Park Sanitarium in Walchensee, in the Bavarian Alps, to undergo the controvers­ial ‘twilight sleep’ regime.

This involved patients being sedated for prolonged periods over two weeks and fed intravenou­sly to control food intake.

Despite Press reports, however, Lanza probably did not go through with this treatment. In his book, Mario Lanza: An American Tragedy, Armando Cesari tells how Lanza’s doctor, Frederic Fruhwein, realised that a standard injection of the sedative Megaphen would have no effect on this large man.

However, given Lanza’s liver condition, a stronger dose could have proved fatal. He was also concerned that lying down for such long periods would result in deep vein thrombosis. Dr Fruhwein told Lanza that unless he cut out alcohol, he would die, and showed him a scan of his liver compared with that of a healthy patient.

The Lanza family spent seven weeks in Walchensee, where Mario followed a strict diet and fitness regimen.

They returned to Rome in August 1958 to complete For The First Time, but the star soon succumbed to alcoholism.

Plans were made for an African tour and a film provisiona­lly titled Laugh Clown Laugh, which had an echo of his earlier success, The Great Caruso.

Sadly, it was not to be. Lanza ballooned to 18st and suffered two heart attacks.

A third one killed him at noon on October 7, 1959, in room 404 at Valle Giulia Clinic in Rome. He was just 38.

Trevor Jones, Hereford.

QUESTION Which Grand National had the fewest finishers?

BEFORE the start of the 1928 Grand national, Tipperary Tim’s jockey William Dutton recalled that a fellow competitor called out to him: ‘Billy boy, you’ll only win if all the others fall down!’

This turned out to be prophetic. Tipperary Tim became the first 100-1 winner of the race when he beat the remounted Billy Barton.

They were the only two horses to complete the race out of 42 runners. There had been atrocious conditions and, when Easter Hero got stuck on top of the Canal Turn fence, the subsequent melee put most of the field out of contention. Just three horses finished in the 1913 Grand national, which was won by 100-9 shot Covertcoat, with Percy Woodland on board. The same number finished in 1951, which was won by 40-1 nickel Coin, ridden by Johnny Bullock. Twelve of the 36 runners fell at the first fence.

Two Grand nationals run over heavy ground have seen just four horses complete the race. The 1980 Grand national was won by 40-1 Ben nevis, ridden by American jockey Charlie Fenwick. In 2001, Richard Guest guided 33-1 Red Marauder home by a distance from the three other finishers.

The highest number of finishers was 23 in 1984, when Hallo Dandy led the field home, with 40 having started.

Arthur Kent, Haverhill, Suffolk.

QUESTION Why is crossdress­ing known as drag?

ACCORDING to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word has existed since around 1388, though not until the 19th century was it used in connection with performing in clothes or a persona different from your own gender.

In 1870, Sunday newspaper Reynold’s news printed it in this context in reference to a party invitation: ‘We shall come in drag,’ meaning men would be wearing women’s costumes.

For hundreds of years, the idea of women acting was considered scandalous, so men played female parts on stage, dressing in women’s clothes.

It’s believed that drag became a term to describe long skirts dragging along the stage floor. Actors would refer to putting on petticoats as putting on their drags.

During the Twenties, the word began to be used by gay people. One theory for this is that it entered the community from Polari — a secret language that drew on theatre slang, born out of the criminalis­ation of homosexual­ity in the UK.

By 1927, drag was clearly linked to the gay community. A. J. Rosanoff’s Manual Of Psychiatry defined drag as ‘an outfit of female dress worn by a homosexual’ or ‘a social gathering of homosexual­s at which some are in female dress’. Emilie Lamplough, Trowbridge, Wilts.

IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspond­ents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT; fax them to 01952 780111 or email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspond­ence.

 ??  ?? Yo-yo dieter: Opera singer Mario Lanza in the film The Great Caruso
Yo-yo dieter: Opera singer Mario Lanza in the film The Great Caruso

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