Italian American Digest Winter Digest 2018 | Page 4

Italian American Digest
PAGE 4
WINTER 2018
2019 LAISHF Honorees
BUDDY “D” MEDIA AWARD
TIM BRANDO
T
im Brando, a Shreveport
native, has called more than 25
different sports during his prolific
career, including college football
and basketball, and has been one
of the most recognizable voices of
the NCAA Men’s Basketball
Tournament since 1996.
Brando joined FOX Sports in
2014 as a play-by-play announcer
for the network’s college football
and college basketball coverage.
In 2018, he remains on the call for
college football on FOX and FS1
alongside analyst Spencer
Tillman and sideline reporter Holly
Sonders. He also comes out of the
FOX bullpen late in the season to
call FOX NFL games, and when the
calendar turns from fall to winter,
Brando takes his microphone to
the college basketball court for
FOX Sports.
Brando also served as host of
CBS Sports’ College Football To-
day and At The Half studio shows,
did play-by-play for CBS Sports’
NFL coverage for several years,
and has done play-by-play for Ray-
com’s coverage of ACC basketball.
He has also hosted Raycom’s
Emmy Award-winning show Foot-
ball Saturdays.
Brando hosted the immensely
popular radio program Tim Brando
Show, which developed into one of
the most respected college sports
shows in the country. It originally
debuted as a nationally syndicated
sports talk radio show before
being simulcast by CBS Sports
Network.
Brando was named the winner
of the prestigious Lindsey Nelson
Award in 2014, a national
LOUIS PRIMA ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT AWARD
ANTHONY LACIURA
A
honor given annually to a college
football broadcaster. In 2009, he
was awarded the coveted Jake
Wade Award, given annually by the
College Sports Information
Directors Association of America
(CoSIDA) to a national media
member for outstanding promo-
tion of intercollegiate athletics. In
2018, Brando received the
Richard M. Uray-Alpha Epsilon
Rho Award for Lifetime Achieve-
ment, presented by the National
Broadcasting Society-Alpha
Epsilon Rho.
Brando was born in Shreve-
port. He graduated in 1974 from
Fair Park High School in Shreve-
port and attended Northeast
Louisiana University in Monroe
(now the University of Louisiana
at Monroe), where he earned a
bachelor’s degree in radio/televi-
sion. He resides in his hometown
with his wife, Terri. The couple has
two daughters, Tiffany and Tara,
a granddaughter, Wilma Scarlett,
and a grandson, Spencer (named
after Brando’s colleague and
close friend, Spencer Tillman).
nthony Laciura’s musical
talents have been on display
since the age of 12, when he sang
the cameo role of the Newsboy
in a rare staging of Charpentier’s
opera Louise, co-starring Dorothy
Kirsten and Norman Treigle at the
New Orleans Opera association.
Laciura has appeared with the
Metropolitan Opera Company in
more than 800 performances and
co-starred in the acclaimed HBO
series Boardwalk Empire for four
seasons.
Born on September 27, 1951,
and educated in New Orleans,
Laciura studied music at Loyola
and Tulane. The late Arthur
Cosenza, former general director
of the New Orleans Opera,
recognized the young man’s
talents as both tenor and actor
and assigned him several difficult
featured roles, among them Goro
in Madama Butterfly, Monostatos
in Die Zauberflote, Incredibile
in Andrea Chenier and Basilio in
Le Nozze di Figaro. These roles
Laciura would ultimately sing at
the Met, along with some of his
other favorites, such as Valzacchi
in Der Rosenkavalier, Bardolfo in
Falstaff, the four servants in Les
Contes d’Hoffman, and Count
Sendorf in Janacek’s The Makro-
poulos Case.
The Washington Post
labeled Laciura “the Clown Prince
of Opera, one of the outstanding
character-tenors of our time.” The
New York Times’ leading music
critic stated that he is “a master of
such roles,” and Terrence McNally
announced during a radio broad-
cast that “the amazing Anthony
Laciura can convince an
audience that he is just about
anyone and sometimes steals
the show.” Entertainment Weekly
listed Mr. Laciura in its top 25
Comic Relief in TV Dramas All-
Stars, for his portrayal of Eddie
Kessler Boardwalk Empire.
In addition to his singing and
acting career, Laciura also directs
opera. He has directed
productions of Verdi’s Otello with
the Vero Beach Opera; Purcell’s
Dido and Aeneas and Puccini’s
La Boheme, Tosca, and Madama
Butterfly for the Phoenix Opera;
Verdi’s Rigoletto for Dicapo
Opera in New York; and Puccini’s
La Fanciulla del West for the
Knoxville Opera.
Laciura’s talent as a unique
character actor has taken him to
the big screen, television, and on
various stages throughout the
world. He has also co-starred as
Frank the Barber in the award-
winning independent short film
Crackers and in the short Mateo’s
Room. Anthony is the recipient of
two Screen Actors Guild awards.