Richard Tucker (August 28, 1913 – January 8, 1975) was a Jewish American operatic tenor. Tucker was born Rivn (Rubin) Ticker in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of immigrants from Bessarabia (then a province in the Russian Empire). His father, Shmul (Sam) Ticker, and mother Fanya-Tsipa (Fanny) Ticker had already adopted the surname "Tucker" by the time their son entered first grade. His musical aptitude was discovered early, and was nurtured under the tutelage of Samuel Weisser at the Tifereth Israel synagogue in lower Manhattan. As a teenager, Tucker's interests alternated between athletics, at which he excelled during his high-school years, and singing for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs as a cantorial student. Eventually, he progressed from a part-time cantor at Temple Emanuel in Passaic, Ne