Lawrence Tibbett

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Lawrence Mervil Tibbett (November 16, 1896 - July 15, 1960) is acknowledged as one of the greatest American male singers of opera in his day. His original last name was Tibbet, but he alternately spelled it with two t's at the end, the spelling he approved on his first contract with the Metropolitan Opera. His father was a part-time deputy sheriff, killed in a shootout with desperado Jim McKinney. Born in Bakersfield, California, Lawrence Tibbett became a singer at the Metropolitan Opera in 1923.

His Hollywood career was brief, although he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his first film, The Rogue Song, in 1930, filmed by MGM in two-strip Technicolor. He became one of the leading baritones of his era at the Metropolitan Opera, specializing in Verdi roles, notably Ford in Falstaff (opera) and Iago in Otello. He created leading roles in a number of American operas, including Louis Gruenberg's The Emperor Jones, based on Eugene O'Neill's play (he sang this in blackface; the character of Brutus Jones is an African-American). He also starred in Howard Hanson's Merry Mount. He sang the roles of Porgy and Jake in the first album of selections from George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, two other roles which, on stage, are usually performed by black singers. And continuing in this vein, he made a recording of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's song, Ol' Man River, from Show Boat.

He had a radio program on which he sang formal music; his sponsor was the Packard Motor Car Company. They chose him to announce the Packard 120 to the world on air; he drove one. When the firm wanted to sell even less expensive cars, they had him add popular tunes to his repertoire.

Tibbett was pictured on a set of United States postage stamps in the "Legends of American Music series", celebrating opera singers.

Lawrence Tibbett died in 1960 in New York City as the result of a fall in his apartment. In later years, he had become reclusive and suffered from alcoholism. He appears as a character in the 1991 film Bugsy, although the actor portraying him did not even slightly resemble him.