Singer, actor Robert Goulet dies at 73
Robert Goulet, the Canadian-raised singer known for his baritone voice and frequent TV appearances, died Tuesday, a spokesman for the singer said. He was 73.
On Wednesday, longtime friend Wayne Newton recalled Goulet's sense of humour which he said "kept my spirits up in some of the lowest valleys in my life.
"His incredible voice will live on in his music, and as Bob so brilliantly sang, 'There will be another song for him and he will sing it,' for God now has another singing angel by his side," Newton said.
In a career that began in Edmonton and took him to New York, Los Angeles and stages around the world, Goulet won a Tony Award, a Grammy Award, and legions of fans, but little critical acclaim.
Blessed with matinee idol looks, Goulet started his acting career in Canada and became a star on Broadway in the role of Lancelot in the 1960 musical Camelot.
If Ever I Would Leave You, Lancelot's love song to Guinevere, remained a signature tune throughout his career.
But after becoming a fixture at Las Vegas, he developed the image of a Lothario crooner with twinkling blue eyes, singing through a haze of cigarette smoke.
His deep, distinctive laugh and sometimes broad opinions also made him a darling of the late-night chat shows.
Both Canada and the U.S. claim him as one of their biggest stars and he accepts both connections.
"Sometimes both countries want to claim me, but then, there have been periods when each one said to the other 'You take him, we don't want him,'" he joked in a 2005 interview.
Goulet was born on Nov. 26, 1933, in Lawrence, Mass. His father, Joseph, was from Quebec and his mother, Jeannette, was from Lewiston, Maine, although her family originally came from Quebec.
"We lived in a French-Canadian enclave in Lawrence— Catholic churches and schools and a tight-knit society," he recalled in an interview with the Toronto Star.
Goulet began singing for family and friends at the age of five. His father was ill for most of his childhood and died when he was still young.
"I sang in the church choir, but I didn't think much of it. Then one night when I was 13, my father called me to his bedside and said, 'Robert, God gave you a voice. You must sing.' He died later that same night."
His mother moved the family to Girouxville, Alta., and later to Edmonton, where Goulet would have the chance to train and perform.
By 16, Goulet was performing with the Edmonton Symphony. "I sang two songs with the Summer Pops and they gave me $25. I said 'You get paid, too?' and that was the first time I thought there might be something in this after all."
He attended the famous voice schools founded by Herbert G. Turner and Jean Letourneau, and later became a radio announcer for radio station CKUA.
Jack Hagerman, program director at CKUA Radio back in the '50s, recalled the teen with a marvellous baritone voice who turned up on the local radio talent show.
"What I said was, I'd like to talk to you when you come out of school and he didn't," Hagerman said on Wednesday. "He got a job driving a parks truck which he smashed up and got fired and then he called me and then I took him on as a trainee."
It wasn't long before Goulet had his own radio show at CKUA.
After high school, he received a scholarship to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, where he studied singing with baritones George Lambert and Ernesto Vinci.
In 1952, he was a semifinalist on CBC talent show Pick the Stars. He went on to appearances on shows such as Singing Stars of Tomorrow, Opportunity Knocks and the Canadian version of Howdy Doody.
In 1958, he played in Beggars Opera in Stratford and then got a place on the CBC-TV program Showtime.
Word of his voice had spread. In 1959, Goulet impressed librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewewith his smooth baritone and earned himself the role of Lancelot in their musical Camelot.
"I later found out they had been looking everywhere and were about to go to England when Don Harron recommended me. I flew down and the airlines lost my luggage, so I showed up in a T-shirt, jeans, cowboy boots and a leather jacket that needed cleaning," he said.
That stage production, opposite Richard Burton and Julie Andrews, launched his U.S. career.
It opened in Toronto in 1960, played in Boston for four weeks, then hit Broadway, where Goulet was acclaimed for his performance in If Ever I Would Leave You.
Goulet, who had long suffered from stage fright, was barely prepared for the success that followed.
After Camelot's run, he was asked to appear on The Danny Thomas Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, where he performed 17 times, and became a household name.
The film offers started to come— beginning with a voice role in animated feature Gay Purr-ee, then an acting role in I'd Rather Be Rich and a string of other 1960s features that were generally considered flops.
It was only in his later years, when he took roles in the Naked Gun series, Louis Malle's 1980 film Atlantic City and Tim Burton's 1988 film Beetlejuice that he regained credibility as an actor.
His voice landed him singing roles in TV versions of Brigadoon and Kiss Me Kate, as well as appearances on shows such as The Jackie Gleason Show and Murder She Wrote.
He was also in demand on stage, with roles in Dream Girl, Carousel, Finian's Rainbow, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Pajama Game, The Beggar's Opera, Bells Are Ringing, Meet Me in St. Louis and The Happy Time, for which he won a Tony Award in the role of a French-Canadian.
But his biggest success was as a singer. He recorded more than 60 albums and appeared in concert around the world.
He remained, until recently, a regular performer at the Frontier Room in Las Vegas, where he made his home.
Goulet had a tempestuous personal life, divorcing his first wife, Louise Longmore, in 1963 and marrying popular stage star Carol Lawrence.
Their 18-year marriage was rocky and ended in 1981, at a time when Goulet was having problems with alcohol.
In 1982, he met and wed Vera Novak, a Yugoslavian-born writer and artist, whom he credits with getting his life back in order.
His crooner image and penchant for cheesy TV appearances have made him the subject of parodies, including one on The Simpsons, in which he is booked into Bart's casino (in the tree house) and sings Jingle Bells (Batman Smells).
"You have to have humour, and be able to laugh at yourself," Goulet said. "One of the lines in Man of La Mancha, spoken of the Duke in the play by Cervantes/ Don Quixote, is, 'He carries his self-importance as if afraid of breaking it' — amuses me immensely. No one should take himself that seriously.'"
Goulet returned to the stage for the first time in nearly a decade in 2005 to take a role in La Cage Aux Folles, bringing down the house by kissing his co-star, Gary Beach, in the Tony-winning production in New York.
"I'm not used to kissing men, so the first time, I nearly broke Gary's nose. Then I hit his chin. I'm getting better," he said of that appearance.
Goulet was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1993 and had surgery and radiation treatment before recovering his health.
He leaves his wife and three children, sons Christopher and Michael, and daughter Nicolette, who is the mother of his grandchildren, Jordan Gerard and Solange.