Dick Contino, Accordion Heartthrob, Dies at 87

Dick Contino, whose energetic accordion playing and movie-star looks made him a teenage star in the late 1940s, but whose celebrity ebbed after he was imprisoned for evading induction into the draft, died on April 19 in Fresno, Calif. He was 87. His wife, Judy, confirmed his death. For a time, Mr. Contino was a show business rarity: a heartthrob accordionist who earned up to $4,000 a week in nightclubs. “Dick Contino is one of the few men in musical history who have ever squeezed big money out of an accordion,” Time magazine wrote in 1951… read more >