102 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • NOVEMBER 2019
REAR VIEW
PERRY COMO
THE MAN WHO INVENTED CASUAL
BY ANNIE WILKINSON
What made him successful? Was it
dazzling special effects? Booty-shaking
dance routines? Ear-splitting
guitar riffs?
No, it was the warm, relaxed manner
of the man Bing Crosby dubbed “the
man who invented casual.” With his
soft and inviting baritone, wearing
his unassuming cardigan, Perry
Como characterized popular music
of the 1940s and ’50s on radio and on
the upstart medium of television.
His easygoing style was the perfect
antidote to the chaos of the World
War II years, a show so popular that
it racked up 15 years of awards.
His program pioneered the musical
variety format, broadcast live from
Manhattan in black and white, with
a chorus, full orchestra, and dancers,
as well as sought-after guest singers
and musicians. After each broadcast,
the famous yet low-key crooner
would headed back from the studio
to Sands Point, his beloved home for
25 years. It was his sanctuary: As
he said, “The world that fussed over
Perry Como never made it through
the front door.”
Unlike many, he didn’t hone his craft
through lessons and classes. He developed
his style while working in an
unrelated field — as a singing barber.
CROON AND A HAIRCUT
He was one of 13 children of Italian
immigrants, born in 1912 in Canonsburg,
Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh.
HIs father was a tin plate factory
worker who loved to sing and somehow
scraped together enough money
to give his son Pierino Ronald Como
instruction in organ and baritone
horn. Young Perry learned to read
music and played with Italian street
bands.
By the time he was 11, he was working
in a barber shop, earning 50 cents
an hour and singing as he swept.
He’d cut the coal miners’ hair and
serenade grooms of wedding parties
with romantic songs. He had his own
shop by his mid-teens and figured
he’d have a career as a barber. But
his customers and family persuaded
him to become a professional singer.
A TREMENDOUS CAREER
He quit barbering and hit the road
with big bands. His wife Roselle,
whom he had married after meeting
at a hometown picnic in 1933, was a
major supporter. By wartime 1941,
Como was performing Copacabana
gigs, riding the subway home to
their small Long Island City apartment
in the wee hours. He recalled
that he wasn't always successful: “…
There were some rough times when
I thought I'd quit show business.
Roselle always stood by me."
In 1943, RCA Victor Records signed
him to what would become a 50-year
contract. His first hit record, “Long
Ago and Far Away,” a radio series, and
a string of million-selling recordings
followed; he even beat Frank Sinatra
to be named second in Billboard
magazine’s annual poll. Disc jockeys
called him “Mr. Jukebox.”
He perfected ballads like “Till the
End of Time” and “It’s Impossible.”
The New York Times’ television
critic John J. O'Connor compared his
personality “to a marvelous hot toddy
on a cold and blustery evening.” But
audiences also loved his novelty hits
like “Hot Diggity,” and “Papa Loves
Mambo.”
Como made his television debut in
1948 on The Chesterfield Supper
Club, sponsored by the tobacco
company. By 1950, the highest-rated
shows were variety programs like
Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town. The
Perry Como Show and Perry Como’s
Kraft Music Hall cemented Como’s
popularity, despite the runaway
success of rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s.
Yet he remained humble, once saying,
“For the amount of talent I had — and
I couldn’t dance, act, or tell a joke — I
enjoyed a tremendous career.”
HOME PORT
In 1946, the Comos and their children
settled in Sands Point near Port
Washington on Long Island’s North
Shore. He was active at Our Lady of
Fatima Roman Catholic Church, supported
St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn,
shopped in Port stores, headlined a
free high school concert, and drove
his gray Caddy, license plate number
PC-42, around town. In 1962 his show
broadcast live from the Sands Point
Golf Club with legends Jack Nicklaus,
Arnold Palmer, and Gary Player golfing
for the cameras.
In the 1970s the Comos moved to
Florida, but he maintained a Great
Neck office and visited LI often. His
1976 Westbury Music Fair concert at
age 64 drew high praise from John
Wilson, a former New York Times
jazz and pop-music critic: “Although
his movements consist of little more
than an occasional hand gesture
or a subtle rhythmic switching of a
foot, he conveys a sense of vitality
and involvement merely though the
glimmer in his eyes and a little lifting
quirk in his smile.”
The people of Port never forgot their
approachable neighbor. After his
passing at age 88 in 2001, Main Street
was renamed “Perry Como Way”
during Pride in Port week.
Perry Como during rehearsal in 1961. World-Telegram photo by Walter
Albertin.
“For the amount of talent I had — and I
couldn’t dance, act, or tell a joke — I enjoyed
a tremendous career, Perry Como said.”
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