Dead, Robert Gerard Goulet on October 30, 2007 at the age of 73, he was an American singer and actor of French-Canadian ancestry.
Goulet was born and raised in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on Greenvile St. in the Tower Hill section on November 26, 1933, the only son of Jeanette (née Gauthier) and Joseph Georges André Goulet, a labourer, his parents were both of French Canadian ancestry.
He was a descendant of French-Canadian pioneers Zacharie Cloutier and Jacques Goulet.
In 1959, Goulet was introduced to librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe, who were having difficulty casting the role of Lancelot in their stage production Camelot.
Lerner and Loewe, impressed by Goulet’s talent, signed the virtual newcomer to play the part, opposite Richard Burton (King Arthur) and Julie Andrews (Queen Guenevere).
On May 25, 1965, Goulet mangled the lyrics to the United States National Anthem at the opening of the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston heavyweight championship fight in Lewiston, Maine.
Goulet had never sung the anthem in public before, and replaced the lyric “dawn’s early light” with “dawn’s early night”.
The gaffe was reported in newspapers nationwide the next morning, and Goulet was criticized in opinion columns for a lack of knowledge of the lyrics.
Goulet also had his biggest pop hit in this year, when his single “My Love, Forgive Me” reached No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Goulet guest starred on The Lucy Show in 1967 as himself and two additional characters who entered a Robert Goulet look-alike contest.
In 1972, he played a lead villain in the season finale of TV’s original Mission: Impossible.
Goulet was featured in a two-part episode of the TV series Alice during the 1981 season, again playing himself.
The plot involves Mel (Vic Tayback) and the girls winning a free trip to Las Vegas, and while there, losing his diner in a gambling spree.
Alice (Linda Lavin) plans to impersonate Goulet in an effort to persuade the casino owner to return the diner to Mel.
The real Goulet appears and sings a duet with the (much shorter) fake Robert Goulet portrayed by Alice.
In 1986, Goulet toured in a U.S. production of South Pacific.
Six years later, Goulet commenced a two-year, 50-city national tour of Camelot.
This time, in the role of King Arthur, he played to packed houses, earning $80,000 a week.
In 1996, his performance in Man of La Mancha introduced him to a whole new generation of theatergoers.
Goulet’s most recent project was a small part in 2000’s The Last Producer, which starred Benjamin Bratt and Burt Reynolds.
He was also signed to play the devil in Christopher Coppola’s G-Men from
Hell, which was still in production at the time of his death.
Robert Goulet died on October 30, 2007 at age 73.
He had been awaiting a lung transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after being found last month to have a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis, said Goulet spokesman Norm Johnson.