Biography

Originally trained on violin and guitar, Marcellino started on the music scene as a teenager with the Lofner-Harris band, based at the Hotel St.Francis in San Francisco. When Ted Fio Rito became the hotel's resident bandleader in 1932, Marcellino joined him and eventually doubled up as guitarist and lead male vocalist. During his six years with the band, he featured in a number of motion pictures, including The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi (1933). In 1938, Marcellino launched his own dance orchestra, operating almost exclusively on the West Coast, with long residencies at the Hollywood Florentine Gardens. His star female vocalist was future film actress Gloria DeHaven.

In the late 1940's, he reduced the size of his band, touring Reno and Las Vegas before joining Art Linkletter's variety program House Party (1952) as its musical director, a tenure which lasted until the show's cancellation in 1969. Marcellino had another string to his bow: his amazing talent at whistling (used only sparsely for novelty numbers during his big band days) which came to be effectively employed in TV ads, numbers written for Disney's 'Mickey Mouse Club' as well as motion pictures. In addition to the theme from The High and the Mighty (1954), he is best known for his whistling on Ennio Morricone's classic western theme of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).