Costa was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she lived for much of her childhood. Her parents were John (1875–1947) and Hazel (1892–1993). Of Italian descent, Costa was raised in a Baptist household[4][5] and sang Sunday school solos at the age of six. At Knoxville High School, she sang in the chorus.[6][7] When she was in her early teens, her family relocated to Los Angeles, California, where she completed high school and won a Music Sorority Award as the outstanding voice among Southern California high school seniors. Following high school, she entered the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music to study with famed maestro Gaston Usigli. Between 1948 and 1951, she appeared with Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy on the Bergen radio show. She also sang with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in concerts at UCLA, and made numerous commercials for Lux Radio Theatre.[8]
Career
In 1952, after meeting people at a party with her future husband, director Frank Tashlin, she auditioned for the part of Disney's Princess Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty, in Disney's Sleeping Beauty (1959). Walt Disney called her personally within hours of the audition to inform her that the part was hers. In 1958, Costa was called upon to substitute for Elisabeth Schwarzkopf at a gala concert in the Hollywood Bowl, conducted by Carmen Dragon. Thanks to glowing reviews from that performance, she was invited to sing the lead in her first fully staged operatic production, The Bartered Bride, produced by the renowned German producer, Carl Ebert, for the Los Angeles Guild Opera. Ebert later requested she appear at the Glyndebourne Festival, where she debuted.[9][10]
Costa impressed television audiences throughout her career with guest appearances on many shows, such as Bing Crosby's Christmas Show on NBC-TV. She appeared with Crosby and Sergio Franchi on The Hollywood Palace in 1970. She also appeared on Frank Sinatra's Woman of the Year Timex Special for NBC, where, with others, she was honored as one of the Women of the Year. In 1973, Sammy Davis Jr. asked her to appear on his first NBC Follies, in which she performed a blues selection with Davis.[11][bettersourceneeded]
Jacqueline Kennedy asked her to sing at a memorial service for her husband, U.S. President John F. Kennedy, from the Los Angeles Sports Arena in 1963. At the memorial concert, Costa sang "Libera Me" from Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem under the baton of conductor Zubin Mehta. She sang for the inaugural concert of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1971. In 1972, she starred in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer feature The Great Waltz, depicting the life of Johann Strauss II. Additional movie credits include The Big Caper (1957) and Marry Me Again (1953).[6]
Personal life
Mary married cartoonist and screenwriter Frank Tashlin in 1953. They divorced in 1966.[12]
Later years
Having retired from acting in 2014, Costa has dedicated her later years to inspiring children and teenagers, giving motivational talks at schools and colleges across the country. She is also a celebrity endorser for child abuse prevention. She continues to do promotional appearances for Disney, most recently for the Blu-ray release of Sleeping Beauty and the 50th anniversary of the film.[13]
In 1989, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Licia Albanese Puccini Foundation. When Disney began releasing videocassette versions of its animated films, Costa was one of three actresses to file lawsuits over royalties for their performances; at the time of Costa's 1989 filing, Peggy Lee of Lady and the Tramp (1955) later won her lawsuit in April 1990 and Ilene Woods of Cinderella (1950) filed hers in December 1990.[14] Voice actress Jennifer Hale replaced Costa as the voice of Aurora in 2001. In November 1999, she received the Disney Legends Award, and her handprints are now a permanent part of the Disney Legends Plaza at the entrance to Disney Studios. In 2000 she was selected as the Tennessee Woman of Distinction by the American Lung Association. In April 2001, she was honored by the Metropolitan Opera Guild for Distinguished Verdi Performances of the 20th Century. In 2003 she was appointed by President George W. Bush to the National Council on the Arts, where she served until 2007. In December 2007, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree by Carson–Newman College in Jefferson City, Tennessee. On November 2, 2007, she was inducted into the Knoxville Opera Hall of Fame. Earlier she had launched the inaugural Knoxville Opera season in 1978 as Violetta in La traviata.[15]
On April 24, 2012, Costa served as the commencement speaker at Pellissippi State graduation ceremony.[16] On November 10, 2014, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane and Musical Letters from the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In 2014, Costa was named one of the YWCA Knoxville's Tribute to Women Honorees during the 30th anniversary celebration. On March 17, 2015 she was a recipient of Tennessee's 2015 Governor's Arts Award.[17] On her 86th birthday, Costa wrote an open letter to her fans thanking them for their support.[18] She also announced that she would no longer directly reply to fan-mail, but she would continue to sign autographs and meet fans at events while also focusing her efforts on working with young children.[19] In August 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Costa once again thanked fans for their continued support but also announced that she would no longer respond to any fan-mail at all due to the overwhelming amount she received following her 90th birthday.[20][21] She was awarded the National Medal of Arts on January 13, 2021.[3][22]
Kennedy, Michael and Bourne, Joyce, Mary Costa profile, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, Oxford University Press, 1996 (accessed via Encyclopedia.com on January 26, 2010)
"Sleeping Beauty", also titled in English as The Sleeping Beauty in the Woods, is a fairy tale about a princess cursed by an evil fairy to sleep for a hundred years before being awakened by a handsome prince. A good fairy, knowing the princess would be frightened if alone when she wakes, uses her wand to put every living person and animal in the palace and forest asleep, to awaken when the princess does.
Maleficent is a fictional character who first appears in Walt Disney Productions' animated film, Sleeping Beauty (1959). Maleficent is the self-proclaimed "Mistress of All Evil" based on the evil fairy godmother character in Charles Perrault's fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, as well as the villainess who appears in the Brothers Grimm's retelling of the story, Little Briar Rose. Maleficent was originally animated by Marc Davis.
Paige O'Hara is an American actress, singer, and painter. O'Hara began her career as a Broadway actress in 1975 when she portrayed Della in The Gift of the Magi. In 1991, she made her motion picture debut in Disney's Beauty and the Beast, in which she voiced the film's heroine, Belle. Following the critical and commercial success of Beauty and the Beast, O'Hara reprised her role as Belle in the film's two direct-to-video follow-ups, Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997) and Belle's Magical World (1998), and for cameo appearances in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) and Once Upon a Studio (2023).
Marc Fraser Davis was a prominent American artist and animator for Walt Disney Animation Studios. He was one of Disney's Nine Old Men, the famed core animators of Disney animated films, and was revered for his knowledge and understanding of visual aesthetics. After his work on One Hundred and One Dalmatians he moved to Walt Disney Imagineering to work on rides for Disneyland and Walt Disney World before retiring in 1978.
Adriana Elena Loretta Caselotti was an American actress and singer. Caselotti was the voice of the title character of the first Walt Disney animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), for which she was named a Disney Legend in 1994, making her the first female voice-over artist to achieve this.
Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Distribution. Based on Charles Perrault's 1697 fairy tale, the production was supervised by Clyde Geronimi, and was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, Eric Larson, and Les Clark. Featuring the voices of Mary Costa, Bill Shirley, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, Barbara Jo Allen, Taylor Holmes, and Bill Thompson, the film follows Princess Aurora, who was cursed by the evil fairy Maleficent to die from a prick from the spindle of a spinning wheel. She is saved by three good fairies, who alter the curse so that the princess falls into a deep sleep and is awakened by true love's kiss.
Disney Princess, also called the Princess Line, is a media franchise and toy line owned by the Walt Disney Company. Created by Disney Consumer Products chairman Andy Mooney, the franchise features a lineup of female protagonists who have appeared in various Disney franchises.
Jacqueline Ruth Woods, better known as Ilene Woods, was an American actress and singer. Woods was the original voice of the title character of the Walt Disney animated feature Cinderella, for which she was named a Disney Legend in 2003.
Alice Estes Davis was an American costume designer. She is most famous for her work with Walt Disney, who employed her to develop costumes for films, television, and theme parks. She was married to Marc Davis, a Disney animator and Imagineer. Alice was named a Disney Legend in 2004.
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Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams is a 2007 American direct-to-video animated musical film produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Disneytoon Studios. It was the first and only film released for a planned Disney Princess Enchanted Tales series of direct-to-video films, each featuring new stories about the Disney Princesses. It was released on September 4, 2007 by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment.
Snow White is a fictional character and a main character from Walt Disney Productions' first animated feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). She was originally voiced by Adriana Caselotti. The character of Snow White was derived from a fairy tale known from many countries in Europe with the best-known version being the 1812 tale collected by the Brothers Grimm.
Aurora, also known as Sleeping Beauty or Briar Rose, is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Productions' animated film Sleeping Beauty (1959). Originally voiced by singer Mary Costa, Aurora is the only child of King Stefan and Queen Leah. An evil fairy named Maleficent seeks revenge for not being invited to Aurora's christening and curses the newborn princess, foretelling that she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel's spindle and die before sunset on her sixteenth birthday. Merryweather, one of the three good fairies, weakened the curse so Aurora would only sleep. Determined to prevent this, three good fairies raise Aurora as a peasant in order to protect her, patiently awaiting her sixteenth birthday—the day the spell can only be broken by a kiss from her true love, Prince Phillip.
Knoxville High School was a public high school in Knoxville, Tennessee, that operated from 1910 to 1951, enrolling grades 10 to 12. Its building is a contributing property in the Emory Place Historic District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building was more recently used for adult education programs offered by Knox County Schools.
The Knoxville Opera is an American opera company based in Knoxville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1978 as the Knoxville Civic Opera by Edward Zambara, who served as Artistic Director until 1981. The company changed its name and became an entirely professional opera company in 1983. Since 1981 the company has had three General Directors who also served as the Principal Conductor; Robert Lyall who served from 1982-1999, Francis Graffeo from 2000-2005, Brian Salesky from 2005-2022., and Jason Hardy from 2022 to present.
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