Born May 18th in Canonsburg, a typical Pennsylvania coal mining town, Perry Como was the seventh of thirteen children of Pietro and Lucille Como, Italian immigrants. His father was a mill hand at the Standard Tin Plate plant. The seventh son of a seventh son, Perry's outstanding success has once again proven that happy piece of superstition and his family always were convinced that he was destined for fame.

At the age of eleven, he was apprenticed to the barbering trade by cleaning mirrors and sweeping the floors of Steve Fragapane's shop after school, for which he received fifty cents a week and lessons. By the time he was fifteen, a youthful head for business had him owning his own barber's shop. He liked his work and the customers who came to him for service inevitably received a song along with a shave and a haircut.

A little later, while on holiday in Lorraine, Ohio, he auditioned for Freddie Carlone's orchestra which had just lost a vocalist. He got his first professional singing engagement at 28 dollars a week. At that time he married his childhood sweetheart, Roselle Belline. Four days after the ceremony, he was on the road with the Carlone band. Eighteen months of that without seeing his wife, and Perry vowed he would never be separated from her again. 

In his journey up the road to success, Perry's second stop was with Ted Weems' orchestra. Weems, who had heard about him, was making a personal appearance in Youngstown, Ohio, at the time ( 1935 ), so promptly journeyed over to the Hollyhook Gardens where the Carlone group was playing.

It was the open road for Perry, but this time on a 50 dollar weekly salary and he was able to take his wife along. On January 15th, 1940, their son, Ronald, was born in Chicago. Como sent his family home to Canonsburg, because he felt the barnstorming orchestra routine was no life for a mother and infant son.

In December, 1942, Weems gave up music to enter Uncle Sam's Armed Forces. A dozen named bands held out attractive offers to Como, but he refused to sign up with any of them. He simply couldn't stand the separation from his wife and young son any longer. And so he packed up and went back to Canonsburg to join them, determined never to sing again if it meant that Ronnie couldn't live a normal life. 

"I stayed home supposedly to rest and get acquainted with my family," Perry recalls, "but mostly I was worrying my head off about what I was going to do next." Como didn't chirp a note during that whole period. Finally he decided to borrow some money and start all over again in the barber-shop business. Then fate stepped in, in the form of a long-distance call from Tom Rockwell of General Amusement Corporation, asking Perry to come to New York and sing on the air.

Perry accepted the offer of a sustaining radio show on CBS when Rockwell assured him he would not have to travel and could bring his family to New York.

Like Sinatra, Como has not only captured large sections of juvenile audiences that crown theatres and ballroom bandstands, but has proved that he has an appeal for those more mature audiences.

Shortly after Sinatra became an SRO attraction at New York's smart Rio Bamba nightclub, Manhattan saw a flood of self-styled rivals.

Then quietly and without any fanfare, Como, whose radio programme had begun to attract attention in entertainment circles, was booked into the Copacabana for two weeks. He was a smash hit. New York critics were enthusiastic in their praise of the young baritone, and the two week engagement was extended to eight.  Perry Como has gained every award offered for vocalists in the U.S.A. He has one of the most successfully sponsored television programmes in America — and has to his credit successful film appearances including "Words and Music,"  "Doll Face," "Something for the Boys" and "If I'm Lucky," to name only a few.