Beb11572
2003-12-07 17:14:29 UTC
Found this article on Arlene Fontana, who played Pat Suzuki's role of Linda Low
in the national tour of FLOWER DRUM SONG. I never saw Fontana perform (although
I remember that she did SOUTH PACIFIC at an old nearby dinner theatre in the
latter 70's), but it sounds like she had a very interesting career and must
have "really been something"! Did anyone here ever see her perform, or work
with her?
Arlene Fontana -- Amsterdam Native Was Theater, Night Club Star
November 24, 2002
Arlene Fontana worked hard to achieve success in a show business career that
spanned close to 40 years. The Amsterdam native performed on Broadway and
appeared almost two thousand times in the national company of Flower Drum Song.
She played nightclubs in New York, Chicago, London and Miami.
"Her greatest appeal was her energy and her appearance on stage," said
Fontana's husband, theatrical agent Carmen LaVia. LaVia said that his late wife
was a "powerful singer" who was always "so well prepared."
Born in 1936, Arlene was the only child of Marty and Palmera Masson Fontana.
Marty Fontana came to Amsterdam as a young child from Genoa, Italy. A popular
salesman for WCSS radio and other companies, Marty Fontana played trombone and
violin in his own band, the Knights of Rhythm.
Arlene began taking tap, toe and ballet lessons at age ten. She studied piano.
When she was 14, she did song and dance numbers in variety shows directed by
local drama coach and later high school principal Bert DeRose.
In 1949, she attracted a regional following by appearing on the WRGB television
program Teenage Barn. At the time, television was a rapidly growing medium and
there were several local music shows. Fontana sang with WRGB performers Gary
Stevens and Earle Pudney, toured New York, Massachusetts and Vermont with
Teenage Barn and did summer stock at the Malden Bridge Playhouse.
In high school, she won an essay contest on the dangers of Communism and worked
on a WCSS radio theater series directed by speech teacher Grace Rutherford.
When Fontana graduated from Wilbur H. Lynch High School in 1954, former
Amsterdamian and family friend Joe Miller offered her a contract to sing at
Miller's Shell Room Lounge in Miami. Fontana and her parents moved to Miami.
For a year, she sang in Miami nightclubs then secured bookings in Pittsburgh,
Washington, Detroit, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston and Las Vegas. She was a
favorite on Television Nacional in pre-Castro Cuba. Her recording of Easy
backed with I'm In Love on a 45 record in the late 1950s did well in England,
getting her club dates in London. Fontana was a friend of Bobby Darin then and
Darin recorded Splish Splash at the same time Fontana's record came out. She
would tell friends in a humorous, self-deprecating way that Darin got Splish
Splash, a major hit, and she got Easy.
Fontana appeared in the Broadway productions of No, No Nanette and The Ritz and
in the early sixties was auditioned by Richard Rodgers for the role of Linda
Low in the national touring company of Flower Drum Song. She played that role
with its signature song, I Enjoy Being a Girl, a record 1,972 times.
Over one thousand of those shows were done at the Thunderbird in Las Vegas
where Fontana met her future husband. She and Carmen LaVia married at St.
Michael's Church in Amsterdam in 1965. The couple lived on the Upper East Side
of Manhattan, where LaVia is still an actor's and writer's agent for the Fifi
Oscard Agency. He became Fontana's agent in 1972 and she continued to perform.
On television, she appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, Merv Griffin, Tonight Show
and the Mike Douglas Show. She acted in soap operas Another World and Loving.
Other regional musical theater roles included the lead in Irma La Douce, Nellie
Forbush in South Pacific, Pal Joey, Sweet Charity and Chicago. She starred in
the dramatic production of Heaven Can Wait. Among her nightclub credits were
performances at the Drake in Chicago and LaMaisonette at the St. Regis Sheraton
in New York City. As a birthday present for her father, Fontana played a
concert in 1971 at the then Coliseum Theatre in Latham. Marty Fontana died in
1974.
In 1984, Arlene Fontana was diagnosed with breast cancer. By 1987, she was well
enough to perform again on a cruise ship and other locations and was in her
last stage show -- This Joint Is Jumpin' -- in 1988. Cancer returned to her
pancreas and she died of a stroke at New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering
Hospital in May of 1990. Her mother, Palmera, survived her daughter by more
than a decade but died a year ago in Amsterdam. Arlene's husband Carmen LaVia
would visit Palmera several times a year.
LaVia said that Amsterdam was always very important to his late wife. Through
the Fontanas, Amsterdam radio and cable executive Joe Isabel became acquainted
with LaVia in the late 1980s. That led to actor William Shatner's willingness
to perform in Amsterdam area charity benefits organized by Isabel. LaVia
represented Shatner at the time.
Arlene Fontana had a "sophisticated act," LaVia said, with "international songs
translated from Italian and French." Her costumes were grand. Over the years,
her musical directors included Jonathan Tunick, who also worked with Stephen
Sondheim and John Devane, who went on to be music director of the Houston
Symphony.
in the national tour of FLOWER DRUM SONG. I never saw Fontana perform (although
I remember that she did SOUTH PACIFIC at an old nearby dinner theatre in the
latter 70's), but it sounds like she had a very interesting career and must
have "really been something"! Did anyone here ever see her perform, or work
with her?
Arlene Fontana -- Amsterdam Native Was Theater, Night Club Star
November 24, 2002
Arlene Fontana worked hard to achieve success in a show business career that
spanned close to 40 years. The Amsterdam native performed on Broadway and
appeared almost two thousand times in the national company of Flower Drum Song.
She played nightclubs in New York, Chicago, London and Miami.
"Her greatest appeal was her energy and her appearance on stage," said
Fontana's husband, theatrical agent Carmen LaVia. LaVia said that his late wife
was a "powerful singer" who was always "so well prepared."
Born in 1936, Arlene was the only child of Marty and Palmera Masson Fontana.
Marty Fontana came to Amsterdam as a young child from Genoa, Italy. A popular
salesman for WCSS radio and other companies, Marty Fontana played trombone and
violin in his own band, the Knights of Rhythm.
Arlene began taking tap, toe and ballet lessons at age ten. She studied piano.
When she was 14, she did song and dance numbers in variety shows directed by
local drama coach and later high school principal Bert DeRose.
In 1949, she attracted a regional following by appearing on the WRGB television
program Teenage Barn. At the time, television was a rapidly growing medium and
there were several local music shows. Fontana sang with WRGB performers Gary
Stevens and Earle Pudney, toured New York, Massachusetts and Vermont with
Teenage Barn and did summer stock at the Malden Bridge Playhouse.
In high school, she won an essay contest on the dangers of Communism and worked
on a WCSS radio theater series directed by speech teacher Grace Rutherford.
When Fontana graduated from Wilbur H. Lynch High School in 1954, former
Amsterdamian and family friend Joe Miller offered her a contract to sing at
Miller's Shell Room Lounge in Miami. Fontana and her parents moved to Miami.
For a year, she sang in Miami nightclubs then secured bookings in Pittsburgh,
Washington, Detroit, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston and Las Vegas. She was a
favorite on Television Nacional in pre-Castro Cuba. Her recording of Easy
backed with I'm In Love on a 45 record in the late 1950s did well in England,
getting her club dates in London. Fontana was a friend of Bobby Darin then and
Darin recorded Splish Splash at the same time Fontana's record came out. She
would tell friends in a humorous, self-deprecating way that Darin got Splish
Splash, a major hit, and she got Easy.
Fontana appeared in the Broadway productions of No, No Nanette and The Ritz and
in the early sixties was auditioned by Richard Rodgers for the role of Linda
Low in the national touring company of Flower Drum Song. She played that role
with its signature song, I Enjoy Being a Girl, a record 1,972 times.
Over one thousand of those shows were done at the Thunderbird in Las Vegas
where Fontana met her future husband. She and Carmen LaVia married at St.
Michael's Church in Amsterdam in 1965. The couple lived on the Upper East Side
of Manhattan, where LaVia is still an actor's and writer's agent for the Fifi
Oscard Agency. He became Fontana's agent in 1972 and she continued to perform.
On television, she appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, Merv Griffin, Tonight Show
and the Mike Douglas Show. She acted in soap operas Another World and Loving.
Other regional musical theater roles included the lead in Irma La Douce, Nellie
Forbush in South Pacific, Pal Joey, Sweet Charity and Chicago. She starred in
the dramatic production of Heaven Can Wait. Among her nightclub credits were
performances at the Drake in Chicago and LaMaisonette at the St. Regis Sheraton
in New York City. As a birthday present for her father, Fontana played a
concert in 1971 at the then Coliseum Theatre in Latham. Marty Fontana died in
1974.
In 1984, Arlene Fontana was diagnosed with breast cancer. By 1987, she was well
enough to perform again on a cruise ship and other locations and was in her
last stage show -- This Joint Is Jumpin' -- in 1988. Cancer returned to her
pancreas and she died of a stroke at New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering
Hospital in May of 1990. Her mother, Palmera, survived her daughter by more
than a decade but died a year ago in Amsterdam. Arlene's husband Carmen LaVia
would visit Palmera several times a year.
LaVia said that Amsterdam was always very important to his late wife. Through
the Fontanas, Amsterdam radio and cable executive Joe Isabel became acquainted
with LaVia in the late 1980s. That led to actor William Shatner's willingness
to perform in Amsterdam area charity benefits organized by Isabel. LaVia
represented Shatner at the time.
Arlene Fontana had a "sophisticated act," LaVia said, with "international songs
translated from Italian and French." Her costumes were grand. Over the years,
her musical directors included Jonathan Tunick, who also worked with Stephen
Sondheim and John Devane, who went on to be music director of the Houston
Symphony.