Anna Maria Alberghetti

The daughter of Italian musicians, soprano Anna Maria Alberghetti was singing on the European concert circuit at the age of 12. Two years later, she made an impressive debut at Carnegie Hall. Hoping to promote Anna as "the new Deanna Durbin," Paramount pictures signed her to a film contract. While her official movie debut was in the independently produced filmed opera The Medium (1950), Anna was given a big-guns "introducing" buildup for her first Paramount effort, Frank Capra's Here Comes the Groom (1951). She followed this with a leading role in the celebrity-studded The Stars are Singing (1952), a genial musical based loosely on Anna's real-life rise to prominence. Few of her subsequent Paramount films were truly worthy of her talents; she left Hollywood, never to return, after surviving Jerry Lewis in Cinderfella (1960). Anna Maria Alberghetti then launched her Broadway career in the hit musical Carnival (1961), adapted from the 1953 Leslie Caron movie vehicle Lili (1953).