I studied with Stella Adler and I didn't like the representational aspect of most opera singers. Most of the opera singers had not a false, but over theatrical way of presenting.

I would want to bring a certain kind of unity and awareness to different things. Even in the 80s, I wanted to do something with Unicef, and I wrote a song for Unicef, but I didn't have any means or the celebrity.

There was something in the bel canto, not just opera, but a certain style of Italian singing that I responded to deeply.

I trained with a guy named Tito Gobbi, who was the Marlon Brando of the opera world. Tito Gobbi was the greatest singing baritone in the opera world and I studied in Florence, Firenze, with him. That was my first love, as it was Frank Sinatra's, oddly enough.

I studied with Stella Adler and I didn't like the representational aspect of most opera singers. Most of the opera singers had not a false, but over theatrical way of presenting.

That's what [Frank] Sinatra did. He was the first artist to come out in a major way against anti-Semitism and racial bigotry. And those are huge things back in the 50s and 60s and 70s - and he was doing this in the 40s.

My daughter [Ariana], she's a sweet, lovely girl, but she doesn't have the drive or the belief in herself. As it says in the film, I get touched up thinking about it, no one can give you a career. You have to have that inner drive. She wants it, but she doesn't know how to go for it, she's too shy. To see her perform and come on stage and feel comfortable, you know, she has talent - that was very touching, very moving, for me. She has a really beautiful sound and voice. She's a young girl still, 26, and innocent. She was kind of sheltered.