MARCO VALENTI Returns to Music (newspaper printed image enhanced by AI)
After tentative turns at studying for the priesthood, playing professional baseball, being a soldier and driving a truck, a young man with a resemblance in appearance and voice to the late Mario Lanza hopes he is ready to stride into a successful entertainment career.
Marco Valenti, 22, is appearing in the Glen Casino, Williamsville. And when Owner Harry Altman tells him recording company representatives are coming to hear him and enthusiastically predicts a big future for his booming tenor voice, Marco smiles and says: “Wouldn’t it be wonderful!”
The young singer is a Pittsburgh native with two interludes of living in Western New York. He once attended St. Paul’s, a Passionist Fathers seminary in Dunkirk. In 1958, as part of a two-year Army stint, he was assigned to the Grand Island Nike base.
He left the seminary when priests who heard his voice in the choir told him he had a “God-given talent” and should be a singer.
He studied voice in Pittsburgh and had roles with the Pittsburgh Opera Company, but then drifted away from singing. He was a pitcher in the Pittsburgh Pirates farm system briefly before joining the Army.
After being discharged in May 1959 he drove a grocery warehouse truck for a few months before he met Miss Jeanne Miller, a Pittsburgh girl who guided him back to a singing career.
The Williamsville appearance, which opened Sunday, is his first engagement outside the Pittsburgh area. Jeanne is here with him as his bride of ten days.
Certain the young man is “a star of tomorrow,” Mr. Altman has extended his appearance in the Casino through next week.
