by G. Jack Urso
Hot Hero Sandwich Music Coordinator Jimmy
Biondolillo has had a long and storied career in the music industry and his
path has crossed many influential people in the arts, film, music, and,
television. Jimmy was gracious enough to send to the project original copies of
some letters for our archives.
First, we take a
look at a couple letters. One from Hot Hero Sandwich creators and producers
Bruce and Carole Hart. The other from Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief Stan Lee
himself, who drops a reference to Hot
Hero Sandwich!
Letter from Bruce and Carole Hart. Letter from Stan Lee.
Letter from the NYU MBT program. Induction letter from the Wickcliffe Hall of Fame.
Display of mementos from Biondolillo's career at the Wickcliffe Community Hall of Fame.
One of the items in Biondolillo’s
display case at the Wickcliffe Library above is
the cover of the Inside Star Trek album (1976), a collection of interviews with Gene Roddenberry, William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, Mark Lenard (as Sarek), and Ray Bradbury. As
a HUGE fan of the series dating back to when it first ran in the 1960s, I couldn’t
let Jimmy drop that without getting the back story! According to Biondolillo:
Gene Roddenberry
had just finished an East Coast talk at three colleges. Star Trek was just starting to become legendary. Gene hired Charlie
Calello (a legendary arranger and producer who was also Biondolillo’s mentor) to
redo the Star Trek theme for the
album of his talks. Charlie asked me if I could do a "Bossa Nova"
type arrangement of the theme, to which I replied, “Of course.” These two arrangements were used on the album
of Star Trek speeches that Gene gave.
He was a nice man and very LA smooth. He brought with him a producer, Gene
Coon, who was also very nice to Charlie and me. You could see that they just
loved music. . . . Charlie moved out to LA soon afterwards to pursue his career
on the West Coast, and, as you know, Star
Trek exploded!
Biondolillo’s
grandfather was a stone cutter and bricklayer who built a fire-brick oven at his home in
Wickcliffe, OH, which later became the center of an annual family tradition with his
mother!
Jimmy still resides in the longtime Biondolillo family home.
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