Singer Vic Damone...

...is dead at age 89.

I initially read Mr. Damone's obit in the Times to see if I recognized any of his hit songs. I didn't.

(I wondered, in particular, if he had recorded "Volare," but it seems he's the only Italian-American singer who didn't. The version I had in mind was by Bobby Rydell, born Robert Louis Ridarelli.)

I also didn't know that Damone turned down the role of Johnny Fontaine in The Godfather. Why? Apparently he thought the movie was "not in the best interests of Italian-Americans." Was he overly cautious? Maybe. But maybe not:

Mr. Damone’s autobiography, “Singing Was the Easy Part,” written with David Chanoff, appeared in 2009. In it, he recalled a night when a mobster, angry that he had broken off an engagement to the thug’s daughter, dangled him out of a New York hotel window. The Luciano boss Frank Costello got him off the hook, he said.

“We didn’t think about it back then,” he said, “but the mob owned the nightclubs and theaters.”

Another noteworthy tidbit is that Damone was married five times and three of his wives preceded him in death, two by suicide. That is not a good record.