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23-414: The Great Caruso is a 1951 biographical film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and starring Mario Lanza as famous operatic tenor Enrico Caruso . The movie was directed by Richard Thorpe and produced by Joe Pasternak with Jesse L. Lasky as associate producer. The screenplay, by Sonya Levien and William Ludwig , was suggested by the biography Enrico Caruso His Life and Death by Dorothy Caruso ,

46-603: A Fairytale (2006), and Howard Stern in Private Parts (1997). In 2018, the musical biopic Bohemian Rhapsody , based on the life of Queen singer Freddie Mercury , became the highest-grossing biopic in history at the time. In 2023, it was surpassed by Oppenheimer , based on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb in World War II. RCA Victor Orchestra The RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra , sometimes also known as

69-406: A codified genre using many of the same tropes used in the studio era that has followed a similar trajectory as that shown by Rick Altman in his study, Film/Genre . Bingham also addresses the male biopic and the female biopic as distinct genres from each other, the former generally dealing with great accomplishments, the latter generally dealing with female victimization. Ellen Cheshire's Bio-Pics:

92-661: A lack of resemblance between the two. The casting of John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror was objected to because of the American Wayne being cast as the Mongol warlord. Egyptian critics criticized the casting of Louis Gossett Jr. , an African American actor, as Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in the 1983 TV miniseries Sadat . Also, some objected to the casting of Jennifer Lopez in Selena because she

115-444: A life in pictures (2014) examines UK/US films from the 1990s and 2000s. Each chapter reviews key films linked by profession and concludes with further viewing list. Christopher Robé has also written on the gender norms that underlie the biopic in his article, "Taking Hollywood Back" in the 2009 issue of Cinema Journal . Roger Ebert defended The Hurricane and distortions in biographical films in general, stating "those who seek

138-1009: Is a New York City native of Puerto Rican descent while Selena was Mexican American . Because the figures portrayed are actual people, whose actions and characteristics are known to the public (or at least historically documented), biopic roles are considered some of the most demanding of actors and actresses. Warren Beatty , Faye Dunaway , Ben Kingsley , Johnny Depp , Jim Carrey , Jamie Foxx , Robert Downey Jr. , Brad Pitt , Emma Thompson , Tom Hanks , Eddie Redmayne , and Cillian Murphy all gained new-found respect as dramatic actors after starring in biopics: Beatty and Dunaway as Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Kingsley as Mahatma Gandhi in Gandhi (1982), Depp as Ed Wood in Ed Wood (1994), Carrey as Andy Kaufman in Man on

161-505: Is a thrilling motion picture, and it has helped many young people discover opera and even become singers themselves." He added that, "I can think of no other tenor, before or since Mario Lanza, who could have risen with comparable success to the challenge of playing Caruso in a screen biography." The film has also been cited by tenors José Carreras , Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti as having been an inspiration for them when they were growing up and aspiring to become singers. The film

184-435: The welkin , too, and their contributions to the concert maintain it at a musical high." Crowther says "All of the silliest, sappiest clichés of musical biography have been written by Sonya Levien and William Ludwig into the script. And Richard Thorpe has directed in a comparably mawkish, bathetic style." Nearly 40 years after its release, Caruso's son, Enrico Caruso Jr. reminisced that, "Vocally and musically The Great Caruso

207-541: The LP, 45 and 78 RPM formats. The album featured eight popular tenor opera arias (four of which were heard in the film) sung by Lanza, accompanied by Constantine Callinicos conducting the RCA Victor Orchestra . The album sold 100,000 copies before the film premiered and later became the first operatic LP to sell one million copies. After its original 1951 release, the album remained continuously available on LP until

230-794: The Moon (1999), Downey as Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin (1992) and as Lewis Strauss in Oppenheimer (2023), Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray (2004), Thompson and Hanks as P. L. Travers and Walt Disney in Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Redmayne as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (2014), and Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer (2023). Some biopics purposely stretch

253-591: The Victor Salon Orchestra based at the company's headquarters in Camden, New Jersey . This group consisted of musicians primarily from nearby Philadelphia and New York City and was created by longtime Victor staff conductor and arranger Nathaniel Shilkret . The name was later used for free-lance orchestras, mainly in New York City, assembled as needed to make recordings for RCA Victor through

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276-753: The Victor Symphony Orchestra, the RCA Victor Salon Orchestra, the RCA Victor Orchestra or the RCA Orchestra, was an American studio orchestra founded in 1940 by the RCA Victor record label for the purposes of making recordings. The Victor Talking Machine Company had employed a studio orchestra since the days of acoustical recording early in the 20th century. In the 1920s, Victor established

299-532: The basic facts of Caruso's life, several of the characters and incidents portrayed in the movie are fictional. Because of this, members of the Caruso family in Italy successfully sued Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for monetary damages, and the studio was temporarily ordered to withdraw the film from exhibition in Italy. Here are a few of the films' many factual discrepancies: The Great Caruso was a massive commercial success and

322-644: The early 1960s. Its players were recruited primarily from the New York Philharmonic , the Metropolitan Opera , the NBC Symphony Orchestra , and other major New York ensembles. The RCA Victor Orchestra recorded with several notable conductors including Leopold Stokowski , Fritz Reiner , Dmitri Mitropoulos , William Steinberg and Leonard Bernstein . A number of these recordings received Grammy Awards . The orchestra

345-568: The late 1980s and was reissued on compact disc by RCA Victor in 1989. In 1947, radio actor Elliott Lewis was considered the front-runner for the role of Caruso, and was screen-tested in January and June. That same year the American tenor Richard Tucker, fresh from his success under conductor Tullio Serafin in the reopening of the Verona amphitheater, was considered but was not screen-tested for

368-519: The most profitable film for MGM in 1951. It set a record gross at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, grossing $ 1,390,943 in ten weeks. According to MGM records, it made $ 4,309,000 in theatrical rentals in the US and Canada and $ 4,960,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $ 3,977,000. The movie was also the most popular at the British box office the same year. Newsweek wrote that, "Lanza brings to

391-461: The role not only a fine, natural and remarkably powerful voice, but a physique and personal mannerisms reminiscent of the immortal Caruso." According to Bosley Crowther , the film is "perhaps the most elaborate 'pops' concert ever played upon the screen"; Blyth's voice is "reedy" but "Lanza has an excellent young tenor voice and...uses it in his many numbers with impressive dramatic power. Likewise, Miss Kirsten and Miss Thebom are ladies who can rock

414-739: The role of Caruso. Biographical film Biopic scholars include George F. Custen of the College of Staten Island and Dennis P. Bingham of Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis . Custen, in Bio/Pics: How Hollywood Constructed Public History (1992), regards the genre as having died with the Hollywood studio era , and in particular, Darryl F. Zanuck . On the other hand, Bingham's 2010 study Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre shows how it perpetuates as

437-501: The tenor's widow. The original music was composed and arranged by Johnny Green and the cinematography by Joseph Ruttenberg . Costume design was by Helen Rose and Gile Steele . The film is a highly fictionalized biography of the life of Caruso. The Opera Montage are Metropolitan Opera stars, notably sopranos Teresa Celli , Lucine Amara and Marina Koshetz , mezzo-soprano Blanche Thebom , baritone Giuseppe Valdengo and bass Nicola Moscona . Although The Great Caruso follows

460-472: The truth about a man from the film of his life might as well seek it from his loving grandmother. ... The Hurricane is not a documentary but a parable ." Casting can be controversial for biographical films. Casting is often a balance between similarity in looks and ability to portray the characteristics of the person. Anthony Hopkins felt that he should not have played Richard Nixon in Nixon because of

483-474: The truth. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was based on game show host Chuck Barris ' widely debunked yet popular memoir of the same name, in which he claimed to be a CIA agent. Kafka incorporated both the life of author Franz Kafka and the surreal aspects of his fiction. The Errol Flynn film They Died with Their Boots On tells the story of Custer but is highly romanticized. The Oliver Stone film The Doors , mainly about Jim Morrison ,

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506-1103: Was highly praised for the similarities between Jim Morrison and actor Val Kilmer , look-wise and singing-wise, but fans and band members did not like the way Val Kilmer portrayed Jim Morrison, and a few of the scenes were even completely made up. In rare cases, sometimes called auto biopics , the subject of the film plays themself. Examples include Jackie Robinson in The Jackie Robinson Story (1950), Muhammad Ali in The Greatest (1977), Audie Murphy in To Hell and Back (1955), Patty Duke in Call Me Anna (1990), Bob Mathias in The Bob Mathias Story (1954), Arlo Guthrie in Alice's Restaurant (1969), Fantasia in Life Is Not

529-485: Was nominated for three Academy Awards ; at the 24th Academy Awards ceremony, Douglas Shearer and the MGM Studio Sound Department won for Best Sound . The film was also Oscar-nominated for its costume design and its score. The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: The Great Caruso record album (though not an actual film soundtrack) was issued by RCA Victor on

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