also won the "You Can Be a Star Series" Contest sponsored by WHAM-TV in Rochester, whose prize was an automobile, a screen test in Hollywood, and the opportunity to meet celebrity personalities Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante and Betty White. Stern's parents were European emigrants of varied ethnicity. He speaks five languages. New York City Opera After graduating from the Eastman School of Music, Stern and his family returned to New York. He and his wife had a third child, daughter Heidi (1960), in Queens, where they first resided. After marrying his second wife, Rita Loving, an accomplished pianist, singer, and operatic vocal coach, Stern and his children moved to Manhattan's Upper West Side. Maurice became the cantor soloist in a reform synagogue. Also during this period he performed in the popular Viennese and Italian restaurants that featured opera, operetta and Italian songs, such as the Viennese Lantern, Bianchi & Margaritas, and Asti's. Throughout most of the 1960s Stern performed as a tenor soloist with orchestras in many Catskill Hotels, including the famous Concord Hotel where the composer Sholom Secunda was the musical director and conductor. Stern performed in the Catskill Mountains and onstage in New York City in collaboration with his second wife as a duet act called "Loving and Stern." In addition, Stern performed as soloist under Secunda at Madison Square Garden. Stern received a scholarship from the Henry Street Settlement to study with the Metropolitan Opera soprano Rose Bampton and her husband, conductor Wilfrid Pelletier. Stern performed the role of Spoleta in an NBC production of Puccini's Tosca with Pelletier conducting. An audition for the New York City Opera, arranged by Bampton, began Stern's operatic career. Among the many roles he sang at New York City Opera were Porcus in Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher by Arthur Honegger; Don Basilio in The Marriage of Figaro and Tanchum the Madman in the world premiere of The Golem, by Abraham Ellstein. In the role of Tanchum Miles Kastendieck of the New York Journal-American noted "Maurice Stern's madman topped all the characterizations, for he acts and sings with complete conviction." Paul Henry Lang of New York Herald Tribune wrote, "Maurice Stern acted and sang the role of the madman with convincing force." Winthrop Sargeant of The New Yorker stated, "Maurice Stern, as a ghetto madman, made outstanding contributions …with his exceptional abilities as an actor." Stern sang the role of Giles Corey