To obtain teaching credentials, he began practice-teaching at a junior high school, but his physical resemblance to Enrico Caruso led to his being chosen for the title role of the 1956 film, The Day I Met Caruso.

Shortly thereafter, he was invited by Los Angeles City College to direct his first complete opera production, Così fan tutte, which led to the offer of an associate professorship at UCLA. During this period, he also directed musical productions at Marymount College and received a scholarship to study with Lotte Lehmann at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, where he became assistant to Dr. Herbert Graf in 1959.