Al Martino; crooner had string of hits, movie role

Publicist Sandy Friedman, of the Rogers & Cowan public relations firm, confirmed Mr. Martino’s death in the Philadelphia suburb but did not cite a cause, according to the Associated Press.

Mr. Martino was one of the most recognizable Italian-American pop singers of the 1950s and 1960s. Influenced by Perry Como and Al Jolson, he had a career that spanned nearly five decades. He leaves behind several celebrated songs, including his breakthrough hit, “Here in My Heart.’’ Released in 1952, it rose to No. 1 in the United States and later became the very first No. 1 single in Britain. It also won him a contract with Capitol Records.

Mr. Martino had an influential and encouraging childhood friend in Mario Lanza, the American opera singer who became a Hollywood movie star in the 1940s. Lanza was slated to also record “Here in My Heart’’ but dropped his plans after Mr. Martino explained that his own debut recording would be neglected if he did.

In the mid-1960s, with rock music dominating the charts, Mr. Martino and his “olive oil voice’’ (in the words of a character in “The Godfather’’) helped reintroduce classic pop romanticism to trans-Atlantic audiences. Between 1963 and 1967 he had nine Top 40 singles, of which the most enduring proved to be “Spanish Eyes.’’ The vocal version of a song composed and first recorded by Bert Kaempfert as “Moon Over Naples,’’ it became something of a standard and was later recorded by Elvis Presley. Mr. Martino returned to the charts in 1975, when he recorded a disco version of the Italian singer Domenico Modugno’s signature song, “Volare.’’

One of the most prominent of the old-guard Italian-American romantic crooners, Mr. Martino found his image permanently embedded in pop culture when he played the singer Johnny Fontane in Francis Ford Coppola’s celebrated 1972 movie, “The Godfather.’’ (He would reprise the role in 1990 in “The Godfather: Part III.’’) The character, loosely based on Frank Sinatra, is a famous crooner and washed-up movie star. Don Vito Corleone, Fontane’s godfather and the head of a major Mafia crime family, intervenes several times to help his career, most memorably in the scene in which a horse’s head is place in the bed of a movie producer who would not hire Fontane.

Mr. Martino also sang “I Have But One Heart (O Marenariello)’’ in the 1972 film.

He was born in South Philadelphia as Jasper Cini. He was just 15 when he joined the Navy in 1943. He completed basic training in New Orleans, where he developed a love for country music. “I took the heart of country singing with me into Italian romantic pop,’’ he said.

He was injured at Iwo Jima.

There were low moments in Mr. Martino’s long career. In 1972, he stormed off the stage at the Plaza Hotel in New York with some bitter remarks about the city, then canceled the rest of his engagement. In 1979, he was arrested on shoplifting charges in Framingham, Mass. He was accused of stealing men’s socks and shirts from a Jordan Marsh department store. He was sentenced to probation.

Mr. Martino continued to perform and record, finishing an album Monday. The last song he recorded, said his producer, Joe Vulpis, was his version of Garth Brooks’s “If Tomorrow Never Comes.’’