ROBERT GOULETRobert Goulet, who died on 30 October, 2007, aged 73, was an award-winning baritone singer and actor known for his booming voice and matinee idol looks.He rose to stardom playing the dashing Sir Lancelot in the Camelot Broadway show and had a successful recording and performing career.Robert Gerard Goulet was born on 26 November, 1933, in Lawrence, Massachusetts to French-Canadian parents, Joseph and Jeanette Goulet. They returned to Canada three months after his birth.His father was an enthusiastic amateur singer and encouraged his son to perform from an early age. He was reportedly forced to perform impersonations of Al Jolson’s blackface routine by aunts and uncles at the age of five, an experience which he found extremely traumatic and left him with severe stage fright.However, when he was 13 his father, on his death bed, told him, “Robert, God gave you a voice. You must sing.” After that he embarked on a singing career. By the age of 16 he was performing with the Edmonton Symphony in Alberta and in the summer musicals. He earned an opera scholarship at the Royal Conservatory of Music in 1955.He moved briefly to New York, but having failed to find work he returned to Canada where he landed a starring role on the CBC television variety programme Showtime, earning him his own fan club.In 1959 he was introduced by his agent to My Fair Lady writers Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe who were casting for their forthcoming musical Camelot. Suitably impressed by Mr Goulet’s talents, they gave him the role of Lancelot in a production which already included Richard Burton and Julie Andrews. During the contract negotiations he was chided by his agent for eagerly offering to play the part for free.Camelot was a great success, running for 873 performances on Broadway before going on tour. In the show, Mr Goulet sang the stirring ballad If Ever I Would Leave You which became a chart hit and launched his recording career.Unfortunately for Mr Goulet his emergence into international stardom at the start of ’60s was ill-timed. Five years earlier and he might have become a major movie star, but the audience for all-round entertainers was giving way to rock ’n’ roll stars.Nevertheless, he recorded 60 albums, the first two of which won him a Grammy Award as best new artist. His starring role in the 1966 television adaptation of Brigadoon secured an Emmy and he completed his collection of prestigious accolades with a Tony for the Broadway musical The Happy Time (1968).Primarily, sporadic film and television appearances aside, he was known in his later career for his Las Vegas shows, which ensured that his fame lasted for several decades and a series of commercials and cameo appearances in the 1990s perpetuated his popularity.His was married three times. His first marriage, to Louise Longmore, lasted from 1955 to 1963 and gave him a daughter. After the divorce he was wed to the singer and actress Carol Lawrence, but despite being touted as “the real-life Ken and Barbie” by the media, the marriage broke down in acrimonious circumstances in 1981. He had two sons with Carol.He credited his third wife, Vera Novak, a Yugoslavian-born writer and artist, with getting his life back on track after a brief career slump and alcohol problems in the early eighties. Despite health difficulties in later life, he maintained a good sense of humour, parodying himself on The Simpsons. He was also one of the first celebrities to speak openly about contracting prostate cancer and actively encouraged men to be tested.He died in hospital in Los Angeles awaiting transplant surgery after being diagnosed with a lung disease. He was survived by his children and his last wife. In 2006 he was awarded a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in Toronto.
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