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Peter Lemongello is an American singer from Islip, Long Island, New York. In 1968, while on a week's R&R in Hawaii, he decided to take in a Don Ho show (when you're in Vegas, you go see Wayne Newton; when you're in Hawaii...). Don Ho asked the audience, "Anyone who wants to sing this song instead of me, come up and take over." Peter had a couple of his army buddies with him, and a couple drinks in him, so he decided, "Fuck it, why not?" and went up on stage. He got such a huge response from the audience that Don Ho asked him to become part of his show.

    Upon returning home, Peter began studying voice and seeking work. He landed a week at the "Living Room" in Manhattan, and received strong reviews from the major New York newspapers' critics. This prompted the owner of the world famous "Copacabana" to hire him as the opening act for comedian Don Rickles' two week engagement. Along the way, Joe Scandore, Rickles' manager who also managed Steve Allen, Vic Damone and Tote Fields, signed Peter to the William Morris Theatrical agency. Fred DeCorova, the producer of NBC's Tonight Show, caught one of these shows and invited him to appear on The Tonight Show. Merv Griffin, Mike Douglas and Dinah Shore's shows followed.
    Within his first three years, Peter was signed by the Epic division of CBS Records, and appeared on his way to becoming a singing star. Unfortunately, things didn't work out that way. He did a couple of live shows in Las Vegas, Reno, Tahoe at the Westbury Music Fair and some of the largest venues in the country as the opening act for Rickles, Bob Newhart, and such, but stardom proved elusive. By 1975, Peter realized that if he was ever going to be the headliner, he would have to produce and promote himself.
    So, in 1976, he came out with an album entitled "Love '76." Rather than go the conventional route (release a single to radio stations; hope they play it; release the album; hope it sells), He did not release his album to record stores. Instead, he went with a massive marketing campaign in New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas with over one hundred television commercials per week all ending with, "Not availabe in stores. Order now!"
    Even though he didn't have a hit record, and no one had ever heard of him before, it worked. Peter Lemongello became the first artist to ever attain a platinum album over the television, and it was based upon little more than his good looks. He also was the first singer to underwrite the cost of the this unprecedented TV Ad campaign by going public and selling shares of stock in his career to the public.
    His story made the Front Page of the Wall Street Journal. Every major TV news organization from 60 Minutes to a Current Affair did feature stories on Peter's accomplishments. Every major newspaper and magazine (People, Time, Newsweek, The London Sun, New York Times, etc.) ran feature stories as well. He was even "Bachelor of the Month" in Cosmopolitan Magazine.
    A follow up double record set, "Do I Love You," took off slowly at first selling 43,000 copies in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey in 13 weeks. After signing with Private Stock Records, in April 1976 they began the same campaign in Los Angeles and Las Vegas and the album began to sell on an unprecedented level attracting widespread media attention.
    OK, so it worked. Good luck sustaining a career like that. Eventually, album sales wained, and Mike Douglas and Johnny Carson stopped calling. The money stopped rolling in, and Peter Lemongello did not know what to do about the mortgage on the big house he bought.
    No problem, we'll just burn the fucker down.
    I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Peter has an older brother named Mike who was a professional bowler, and a cousin named Mark Lemongello who pitched for the Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays from 1976 to 1979. In 1982, having been out of major league baseball for three years, he still managed to keep in touch with former baseball buddies, Manuel Seoane and Joe Sambito.
    Seoane has the pathetic major league stat of having pitched six innings for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1977 and eight innings for the Chicago Cubs in 1978. Sambito, on the other hand, actually managed to have a pretty decent baseball career. By 1981, Peter and Mike Lemongello formed the Heron Development Corporation, and were working on a house for Sambito in an expensive subdivision north of St. Petersburg, Florida.
    One day, Mark Lemongello and Seoane decided to meet Peter and Mike at Sambito's house. They abducted and robbed Peter and Mike at gunpoint and forced them to make a withdrawal of more than $10,000 from a safety deposit box. After beating Peter and Mike and eventually getting over $50,000 from them, Mark and Seoane dropped them off in a wooded area north of Pinellas County.
    The point of this story?: insanity runs in this family. Once upon a time, you were rich and famous and probably got to bang Susan Anton at least once. Now you're broke, your cousin just kicked your ass, you can't make your mortgage payment and you are almost out of Jack Daniels. what would you do?
    Which brings us back to, "Burn the fucker down, and collect the insurance money!" I'm not sure how he got caught, if he did time or what, if any, time Mark Lemongello and Manuel Seoane got, and I had no luck finding any of this on the internet (and believe me, I tried), but this is as much of the story as I know.

References

External links

• Big Beat Productions Retrieved 7 May 2007.

• “The $390,000 Man” Time Magazine; Monday, 31 May 1976 Retrieved 9 May 2007

• Charles Rapp Enterprises Retrieved 5 May 2007

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