Bernardo De Pace (March 31, 1881 – June 15, 1966) was an actor, musician and comedic vaudeville entertainer of the 1910s and 1920s, billed as "the Wizard of the Mandolin". He learned to play mandolin in the Italian tradition under Francesco Della Rosa. De Pace's repertoire and technique was described in the Brooklyn Life as involving "the most difficult violin and piano compositions, executed at inconceivably rapid tempi demanding an uncanny technique seldom heard on fretted instruments". In 1927 the Minneapolis Star said that he had been recognized as one of the best mandolinists in the United States. It added that he was more than a mandolinist, that his skill was in playing on human emotions as few musicians were able. Growing up in the Golden Age of the Mandolin, he was one of its star performers in both Europe and the United States. De Pace won an international mandolin contest at an early age, and as his grandson Bobby De Pace later put it, "From 11 to 17, he played for kings and queens." He worked in England for nearly 10 years, starting in 1900, playing with the Blackpool Winter Gardens' Orchestra for 3 seasons and touring the country for nearly 7 seasons with his brother Nicolas, until 1909 when they emigrated to the United States from Italy. By 1921 he had toured extensively both as a musician and a vaudeville performer. For many years, De Pace was mandolin soloist at the Metropolitan Opera in addition to his turns on the vaudeville stage. His talents were also recorded in the newly emerging film industry; his camp performance style is captured in a Warner Bros. Vitaphone short from 1927 (Bernado de Pace: The Wizard of the Mandolin) which was released on DVD in 2007 as part of The Jazz Singer deluxe edition, and two MGM shorts from 1929. He also released a series of recordings ranging from light classical pieces to original compositions in traditional Italian style. European tours Bernardo moved to Naples with his family when he was two. He began to play the mandolin at five years of age and it became his passion "to the exclusion of all else". He has been credited with having for teachers both Luigi Della Rosa (violin) and Francesco Della Rosa (violin and mandolin). He impressed Luigi with his musical aptitude and received lessons for free, but when it was apparent that