American accordionist, singer, and actor.
Born January 17, 1930, Fresno, California, USA Died April 19, 2017. He was married to actress/singer Leigh Snowden. Son of Papa Contino.
He learned how to play on his accordion at an early age. Dick initially took local lessons. Pietro promised that if Dick could play 20 songs without sheet music, he would buy Dick a more sophisticated accordion. Within a couple of weeks, Dick played the 20 songs for his dad. Thereafter Dick primarily studied accordion with well-known accomplished accordionists with his own new accordion.
In 1948, he won a grand prize of $5000 for a national Horace Heidt/Philip Morris talent contest after first winning multiple local, then quarterfinal, and semifinal contests.
He charted with two songsin the U.S.--first in 1955 with the instrumental Yours (Quiereme Mucho), which landed at #27 and in 1957 with a song he sang Pledge of Love, which made it to #42. Contino toured with the Horace Heidt Orchestra and was billed as the world's greatest accordion player. He appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show a record 48 times.