Concurrently, while I was in school, while I was winning awards for acting, I was winning awards for singing, in high school. One of the reasons why I decided to continue on with the acting was the opera world is fraught with a very long process, and I did love the acting, as well. The acting took off sooner, and then you get involved with that.

I had a little bit of a vocal strain at a certain period of time that made me lay off the singing, and while I was lying off the singing, I was pursuing the acting.

I was born in the 50s, my mom was pregnant in the 50s, [Frank] Sinatra had that big come back around then, From Here to Eternity.

In an Italian household, there were two figures for me growing up - you had the Pope and you had Frank Sinatra, and, of course, Tony Bennett. And not necessarily in that order.

His [Frank Sinatra] voice defined not only a certain period of time, but America and what America meant to the world. Sinatra grew up, as my grandparents did, when being Italian was very, very prejudice against, but they didn't let it bring them down or use it as an excuse.

You have to have a certain kind of celebrity to pull something that big together, but I had a whole thing called The Spirit of Man that I wanted to do worldwide concerts in celebration for the spirit of man. So, as I move forward, that would be the kind of thing that I have.

[Frank] Sinatra, to everyone, even Tony Bennett, was such a huge influence because he had mastered not only music, but film and radio.