You fell in love with your husband at first sight-and it really was love, for at the time you didn't even know he was a singer. He was in the Army and your brother Bert, who was his buddy, brought him home. You fell in love with his exuberant personality, his - eyes and his quick laugh. It was only after a month of steady dating that you heard him sing. It was at a party and he sang Vesti La Giubba; and, as he sang, your heart beat fast as you realized the greatness of this boy whom you'd thought was so sweet and plain.

Your maiden name is Betty Hicks. You're bright and gay, of Irish extraction. You were raised in Chicago, but were an instructor and lecturer at a Los Angeles aircraft plant when you met your husband. You studied music appreciation so that you can keep up with your husband.

Everything about him - his tastes, his way of living, his appetite - is expansive. He can't stand anything small in homes or people. You live in a mansion-size home in Beverly Hills with a living-room two stories high and full of oversized furniture. When he goes on tour, you reserve the presidential suite for him because he feels stifled in ordinary sized hotel rooms. He's not happy unless there's a horde of friends in his home, and they must all stay for dinner or he's insulted.

Your husband, for all the glamor of his work, is a deeply devoted family man. You have two little girls, Colleen, 3, and baby Elissa. He wants ten children. Before every concert he first calls home to talk to the children. You travel with him on his tours because he wants you by his side all the time. And you love it. You sit in the audience every night and listen as though this were the first time you ever heard him, and you tell yourself proudly, "That man up there on the stage is mine." You wouldn't change places with Queen Elizabeth.

Every morning, sometimes as early as 6 o'clock, there's a ceremony where the children are brought into your bedroom and you all sit around and have coffee and milk together, laughing and talking. One morning there was no time for this ritual and your husband missed it so, he was upset all day. At the studio he calls you five and six times a day to tell you everything that's going on. He doesn't do a thing without you.

He has a true singer's build - large and powerful and so broad in the chest and shoulders that he's never been able to buy a ready-made suit, even in the old days when he couldn't afford custom-made clothes. His weight, which has been the subject of so much discussion, fluctuates around the 200-pound mark. Between pictures he puts on weight, then takes off about twenty pounds before the film starts. He's an expert on diet and won't starve himself. He sticks to a high-protein diet, eating steaks for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For breakfast he has steak and four eggs. He loves the rich Italian dishes his mother cooks, but has cut down on them, reluctantly, for his weight. He thinks you prepare the best steaks in the world. Your secret is to marinate it in vinegar and use plenty of garlic.

He works out every day in the garden with Terry Robinson, a boyhood friend from Pittsburgh, who's now his trainer. He goes at everything so hard; the first time he socked the punching bag he knocked it off its mooring.

You and your husband were married twice - to each other. The first was a civil ceremony. Then you went to New York and were married in a picturesque little Catholic church in Hell's Kitchen with his mother and father present. You still wear the $5 wedding band in which you were married, but because your husband loves beautiful jewels and can now afford them, you wear diamond-and-ruby guard rings circling it.

You don't live on a strict budget; your husband couldn't. He must do things in a big way. He's got to have the best or nothing. Typically, when he bought you your first fur coat, it had to be the very best - a full-length white mink. He loves food. Sitting at one meal, he'll be planning the next. He's happiest when he's playing host to a house full of people. Everyone must have second helpings or he's hurt. Sunday is open house in the grand manner. The barbecue is going all day. Once, because there wasn't enough chicken cacciatore to go around twice for a crowd of about 100, your husband hit the ceiling. Nothing disturbs him more than being deprived of the opportunity to play the grand host, with an unlimited supply of good food. Now you keep your deep freeze full, and you are always prepared for an unexpected army of friends - which you get!

Your husband has an explosive temper when he gets angry - but gets over it quickly. He doesn't brood or carry a grudge. Oddly enough, on the day he's rehearsing or warming up for a concert, when he'd be expected to be edgy, he's as docile as a lamb, inviting you and the children to come in and listen to him. Before a concert, he spends most of the day warming up with his trainer. That relaxes him.

He owns a hot dog stand, which is his pet project. He always wanted to own a hot dog stand as a boy - now he has one. When he and Sam Weiler, your friend and business manager, talk over business affairs at night and discuss commercial property involving a million dollars, your husband always ends with, "And how many hot dogs did we sell today?"

You sit in on all business discussions. In fact, you're in on everything that concerns your husband. He doesn't want to do a thing without you. Your husband won't even buy a tie unless you're with him. You went with him on a tour only a few minutes after your second baby was born. "A singer must be happy to sing his best," says your husband. "And I'm not happy unless you're with me."

Mario doesn't have to pretend -
he's never happier than he is when he's with Betty
and their two darling daughters, Colleen and baby Elissa.

Your husband plays a game every night of holding each baby on either side of his chest while he sings. Then the babies catch the vibration and sing with him. "Their pitch is perfect!" he chortles. This makes him the happiest man in the world.

There's music in the house from morning until night. Your husband sings in the shower - arias. At night, you both sit in the den and listen for hours to recordings of Caruso, Gigli and other of his favorites. He doesn't play his own records.

You rarely go to a night club, but your husband loves to dance. Every night at home you turn on popular records and dance together. He's always coaxing Ricardo Montalban to teach him the latest Latin steps. It's his suppressed desire to be a dancer. He's studying tap with Nick Castle.

Your husband loves people and picks up friends wherever he goes. Last summer you vacationed in Oregon and a young river logger named Dale Goodman was your husband's hunting guide. Today Dale and his wife are among your closest friends, along with Andy and Della Russell, the Ty Powers, the Ricardo Montalbans and the Howard Keels.

You're tall and slim and have a cheerful personality; you have black hair which you wash and set yourself, and blue eyes. You're lively, spirited and good-natured, but you lose your temper when you feel that anyone's hurt your husband or taken advantage of him. When rumors floated around that your husband was tempermental, you were fit to be tied. When there was talk that he couldn't lose weight due to a glandular condition, you wanted to shout from the housetops that he was a perfectly healthy man who needs a heavy frame to give his voice power. Your sun rises and sets on your husband.

Your husband loves to receive surprises and you try to bring him a little gift every night. He never forgets an anniversary or birthday, and his gifts are typical of him: fabulous. At your last birthday, a box as big as the dining room table arrived. From its size you knew that only your husband could have sent it. Inside were twelve dozen American Beauty roses. That wasn't all. Another ornate box was delivered containing the skins of rare Aleutian mink which he was having made up into yet another mink coat for you.

You were married on Friday, the 13th. It's been, for all the world to see, a very lucky date. You gave your husband a money clip designed around that number and inscribed: "Darling, may we live as long as we love and love as long as we live." Your husband claims he's not superstitious, but he's never without that clip. Not for a minute.