Mary Costa

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mary Costa (born April 5, 1930 in Knoxville , Tennessee ) is an American opera singer (soprano), actress and voice actress . She gained fame as the voice of Princess Aurora in the original version of the 1959 Walt Disney film Sleeping Beauty , for which she was named Disney Legend in 1999 .

Life

Mary Costa was born in Knoxville in 1930, where she spent much of her childhood and adolescence. She began singing solo pieces in church at the age of six and later became a member of the school choir at Knoxville High School. As a teenager, Costa moved with her family to Los Angeles , where she graduated from high school and then studied at the California Institute of the Arts .

Between 1948 and 1951 Costa hosted her own radio show with Edgar Bergen . She also performed at the Lux Radio Theater and gave concerts as a troupe entertainer with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis . In 1952 she met the animator Frank Tashlin , whom she married a year later. Through Tashlin's contacts, Costa received an invitation to the casting for the dubbed role of Princess Aurora in the cartoon Sleeping Beauty of Walt Disney Studios and was ultimately chosen by Walt Disney personally for the role. She also sang all the songs of her character in the film and was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category Best Soundtrack Album in 1959 .

During her career, Costa has appeared in more than forty operas and plays around the world, including Manon at the Metropolitan Opera , La traviata at the Royal Opera House, and La Bohème at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma . She was also part of the original cast of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the San Francisco Opera in 1961 .

In addition to her stage career Mary Costa was in large minor and major roles several feature films and as a guest star on television shows of Bing Crosby , Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. to see. At the personal request of Jacqueline Kennedy , she appeared as a singer at a public memorial service for John F. Kennedy at the Los Angeles Sports Arena in 1963 . In 1971 she was one of the star guests at the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts . From July to November of the same year, Costa played the role of Kunigunde in a revival of Leonard Bernstein's musical Candide on tour in San Francisco , Los Angeles and Washington, DC

Costa's later film appearances included the lead female role in the 1972 musical film The Great Waltz , for which she received a Golden Globe nomination in 1973 .

In 2000, Mary Costa ended her career at the age of seventy. Nevertheless, she appeared again as an actress in a cameo in Being Julia in 2004 . Since then, Costa has been an ambassador for the charity Childhelp. She was named Disney Legend in 1999 for her role as Princess Aurora .

Awards

Filmography (selection)

  • 1953: Marry Me Again
  • 1957: The Big Caper
  • 1959: Sleeping Beauty ( Sleeping Beauty , Cartoons, voice actress)
  • 1972: The Great Waltz
  • 2000: Titus Andronicus
  • 2004: Being Julia

Web links

Commons : Mary Costa  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fateful Encounters: Mary Costa Talks Disney and Stravinsky. In: D23. Retrieved February 4, 2020 .
  2. ↑ John Clark: Mary Costa, voice of Sleeping Beauty. In: San Francisco Chronicle . October 26, 2008, accessed April 2, 2020 .
  3. ^ Dan Dietz: The Complete Book of 1970s Broadway Musicals . Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham 2015, ISBN 978-1-4422-5166-3 , 118.
personal data
SURNAME Costa, Mary
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singer, actress and voice actress
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Knoxville , Tennessee , United States