Lawrence Tibbett born 16 November 1896

Lawrence Mervil Tibbett (November 16, 1896 – July 15, 1960) was a famous American opera singer and recording artist who also performed as a film actor and radio personality. A baritone, he sang leading roles with the Metropolitan Opera in New York more than 600 times from 1923 to 1950. He performed diverse musical 
theatre roles, including Captain Hook in Peter Pan in a touring show. He was among the first operatic personalities to perform "popular" music.

Born Lawrence Mervil Tibbet (the extra "t" was added when he signed his first Metropolitan contract), he was raised in Los Angeles and started singing for money at an early age in church choirs and at funerals. Following his 1915 high school graduation he served in the US Merchant Marine during World War I, then returned home where he sang at silent movie theatres.

After a period of study in New York, he gave the first of his roughly 600 Metropolitan Opera performances in 1923 as the Herald in Richard Wagner's "Lohengrin". Tibbett saw his big break in 1925 when he was Ford in Giuseppe Verdi's "Falstaff" opposite Antonio Scotti; he was to assume continually larger roles over the years, among them the title leads of Verdi's "Rigoletto", "Simon Boccanegra", and "Falstaff", the bullfighter Escamillo from Georges Bizet's "Carmen", the evil police chief Scarpia of Puccini's "Tosca", both Silvio and Tonio in Leoncavallo's "I Pagliacci", the elder Germont from Verdi's "La Traviata", and the villain Iago of the same composer's "Otello".

                              

Tibbett made his first recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1926. In the early 1930s, Tibbett also appeared in movies. His Hollywood sojourn proved brief, although he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his first film, 
The Rogue Song, a 1930 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production with Laurel & Hardy, shot in two-color Technicolor (only a few minutes of footage of the film, as well as the complete soundtrack, is known to survive today).

He was also seen in "New Moon" (1930) with Grace Moore and 1935's "Metropolitan" while becoming a regular on the concert stage and on the radio with Packard automobile commercials and frequent appearances on "Your Hit Parade".

During the 1930s, Tibbett sang throughout the United States and Europe and was to achieve note in some more modern operas, giving the 1933 world premiere, in blackface, of Louis Gruenberg's "The Emperor Jones" and having success in Deems Taylor's "The King's Henchman" and Howard Hanson's "Merry Mount". The title lead of George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" was essentially written for his voice as the composer's specification for the role was a "coloured Lawrence Tibbett". Indeed, when RCA made the first recordings of the piece under Gershwin's supervision they featured Tibbett and Helen Jepson, not Todd Duncan and Anne Brown.

Apparently a rather rude and unpleasant man, this quality was only exacerbated by his steadily worsening fondness for drink, with multiple tales told of him onstage intoxicated, the entire stage reeking on the occasions when he was partnered with the alcoholic Swedish tenor Jussi Bjorling; in one such incident the Bulgarian soprano Ljuba Welitsch grew tired of his ways and repeatedly kicked him after "killing" him at the end of Act II of "Tosca", while another time he refused to allow a young Leonard Warren to sing Ford opposite his Falstaff, saying "I didn't want him doing to me what I did to Scotti".

Tibbett saw his voice damaged by alcohol and over-use and left the Metropolitan in 1950, though he was to have some later success as Captain Hook in "Peter Pan" and on Broadway in "Fanny". In later years Tibbett served as host of a radio show featuring recordings of operatic singers. He leavened matters with reminiscences of his own stage experiences.

Plagued by severe arthritis and years of drinking problems, he aged prematurely as his health worsened. He died on July 15, 1960, after hitting his head on a table during a fall in his apartment. 

The Time obituary said of him: "Tibbett had a big, bronze-like, dramatically eloquent voice that combined ringing power with remarkable agility ... he left behind not only the echoes of a great voice but the memory of a performer who could feel equally at home with high art and popular entertainment, suggesting that there is a magical link between the two." He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

(Edited from Wikipedia and Bob Hufford bio)

This clip is from "Metropolitan," the year 1935. It starred Mr. Tibbett, Virginia Bruce, Alice Brady and Cesar Romero. It was very well received, and apparently the 1st production by Daryl F. Zanuck for Twentieth Century Fox. It opened at Radio City Music Hall!