Vic Damone

No less a figure than Frank Sinatra once proclaimed singer Vic Damone as possessing the "best pipes in the business," which he parlayed into a popular recording career in the late 1940s and 1950s with such hits as "You're Breaking My Heart," "Again" and "My Heart Cries for You," among many other lush romantic ballads. Damone also enjoyed a secondary career as an actor, largely as lovestruck youth in such Hollywood musicals as "Deep in My Heart" (1954) and "Kismet" (1955). Like many pop crooners, Damone was unmoored by the rise of rock-n-roll in the early 1960s, though he segued successfully into the casino circuit in the 1970s, where he remained active and in fine voice until his retirement following a stroke in 2001. Though never a cultural institution like Sinatra or Nat "King" Cole, Vic Damone's rich baritone provided him with a slew of hits in the 1950s and a career on stage that compared with and even outlasted many of his contemporaries. He performed steadily until his retirement in 2011. Vic Damone died in Miami Beach on February 11, 2017. He was 89.