From Microphone To Grease-Gun

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 197, 2 April 1943, Page 5

From Microphone To Grease-Gun

the M-G-M studios, being seen and heard on a miniature film through a dime-in-the-slot machine, singing "O Sole Mio" by moonlight on the deck of a merchant ship in equatorial waters, these were some of the things that George Pantages, a twenty-one-year-old American tenor, told us about when we interviewed him recently. The war interrupted what he had hoped would be a career in the world of microphones and cameramen, and now he is a greaser on a merchant ship. Pantages’ parents are both Greek, but neither of them is musical. He left his home in "Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the age of 17 to seek his fortune in Los Angeles and Hollywood, having known for two years that he had a tenor voice that was likely to become a valuable asset-its range now is two octaves, from low C up to D sharp above the stave. Singing light music at the Paris Inn Night Club in Los Angeles gave him enough to live on until he had made S INGING duets with Gloria Jean at

connections with the film world, and eventually he got a contract with M-G-M to, study acting and singing. He also sang in Mary Astor’s "Hollywood Showcase," a radio guest artist programme, and with Abbott and Costello in the Orphan Theatre. With the Mills brothers he made miniature films, which play about three minutes on a screen about two inches by three inches, when a dime is put into a slot. Mr. Pantages’ voice is of an unusual type, and he can use it with ease at a high range. He specialises in the Italianate sort of song-"Funiculi Funicula," "O Sole Mio," "Santa Lucia," and ex7 from "Rigoletto." st December he was promised an audition for the Metropolitan Opera House, which was fixed for next July, on a long waiting-list. "Heaven knows where I'll be then, though," he said with a gesture of resignation. While in New Zealand, Pantages sang to his countrymen in a U.S. hospital, and from the studio of 2YA last month.