I thought everybody had falsetto. And since I wasn't a schooled singer who studied with anybody, I just thought anybody who had a voice could do anything they wanted with their voice.
One day, when I was still living at home, a friend told 'Texas' Jean Valli about me. She was originally from Syracuse, N.Y., and lived in New Jersey but sang country. One night, she had me come up on stage where she was performing. I sang 'My Mother's Eyes,' and she was knocked out.
When somebody is making a movie about your life, that's different. A show is a live performance. Things are going to go wrong. You are going to get away with things. A movie is indelible. A movie is through a microscope.
If I close my eyes, I can remember the first apartment where I lived with my family in Newark, N.J., in the late 1930s. The rooms were lined up like train cars - you had to go through one to get to another - and there wasn't any heat or hot water.
Starting in my teens, I was always standing on the corner near our apartment singing harmony with friends. We'd also go to the park and sing under the bridge near the lake for the echo. When it was cold out, we'd stand in the little heated lobby in the project's administration building, where my mom paid the rent each month.
In 1967, I found out I was losing my hearing. I went 10 years without any help. I had otosclerosis - hardening of the bone in the middle of the ear.
