Robert Goulet

Although Robert Goulet's visage achieved greater recognition than his vocal performances, he issued a series of successful Columbia LPs throughout the 1960s that placed multiple singles on the pop charts and secured him the 1962 Grammy for Best New Artist. Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1933 and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, he began formal training in acting and singing during his teenage years. Early appearances on Canadian television in the first half of the 1950s led him to relocate to New York, where, by decade's end, he landed the choice Broadway part of Sir Lancelot in Lerner & Loewe's Camelot alongside Julie Andrews and Richard Burton. Subsequent leading film roles, however, failed to generate comparable success.

Goulet also launched his recording career in the early 1960s. Following a guest spot on The Ed Sullivan Show, he joined the Columbia roster in 1962. The single "What Kind of Fool Am I?" registered modest chart activity later that year, and early in 1963 he received the Grammy for Best New Artist. Like numerous vocalists of the period, he proved more reliable as an album seller than as a consistent hitmaker; a surprise Top 20 entry with "My Love, Forgive Me (Amore, Scusami)" in 1964 proved to be his final chart success. The corresponding LP My Love Forgive Me climbed to number five and earned gold certification. Goulet continued releasing recordings until 1970, after which he concentrated on concert and television engagements.

In 1993 he directed and starred in a new staging of Camelot, this time assuming the role of the older King Arthur. That same year an animated version of Goulet appeared in an episode of The Simpsons. He took the lead in the 1996 feature Mr. Wrong and supplied the singing voice of Wheezy the Penguin for the 1999 animated release Toy Story 2. A 2000 revival of South Pacific followed, and in 2005 he returned to Broadway in La Cage aux Folles. Canada's Walk of Fame inducted him in 2006. One year later he appeared in an eccentric and comedic spot for the Emerald Nut Company that ran during Super Bowl XLI. Goulet died in late 2007 while awaiting a lung transplant to treat a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis.