Dick Contino

Dick Contino is remembered today for his performances in notoriously (and, one might add, enjoyably) bad movies such as Daddy-O (1959) and The Beat Generation (1960). But for about three years, from 1948 until 1951, Contino was a star attraction as a musician, earning 4,000 dollars a night. He had a recording contract with RCA Victor and an instrument named after him, could write his own ticket, and all of that as an accordionist. True, the accordion has oftentimes failed to gain acceptance as a "serious" instrument in certain quarters -- Robert Klein probably put it best on C...