Derek Mannering was born in Dublin, Irland. He has lectured on film and television, produced and directed one short film which was screened on RTE, and has written and presented a number of radio programmes for RTE in Dublin and WFMT in Chicago. This is his second biography of Mario Lanza. The first, Mario Lanza: A Biography was published by Robert Hale in 1991. The author currently lives in Chicago.