Bernie Toorish found fame with the ‘zingiest male quartet in the business’

One day in 1954 at Saint Ignatius of Loyola Catholic Church, in a ritzy area of Newton, Mass., just outside of Boston, an unusual group sang at Mass. They were four former Toronto choirboys: Jimmy Arnold, Frankie Busseri, Connie Codarini and Bernie Toorish.

The soda-shop set knew them as the Four Lads, harmonizing pop vocalists based in the United States whose signature hit at the time was a novelty number from a year earlier, Istanbul (Not Constantinople), their first gold record.