Mr. Mace lived with his partner, known professionally as Richard Adrian Dorr, for decades, and noted Broadway performers studied at the vocal studio they ran.
In 1948, John Mace, a sophomore voice student, was working part time in the extension division of the Juilliard School, helping to sort out schedules, when a tall, good-looking freshman walked into the office. He was Richard Prahl, and a bit miffed at being told to work out a kink in his courses.
Then it happened. “I first looked at Richard, and my heart went pitter pat; it’s been that way ever since, ” Mr. Mace told People magazine in 2012.
A relationship developed, one that endured for well over a half-century. Together the two men set up shop as vocal coaches to a roster of stars, lived together in New York City, raised Mr. Mace’s son, the product of a brief marriage, and in 2011 joined forces with Free to Marry, a group advocating changes in state laws forbidding same-sex marriages.
They became part of an online advertising campaign in support of the changes, participating in a widely circulated short video about themselves.
And by then, getting married seemed like the natural thing to do.
“I come from an Italian family, and they’ re the marrying kind, ” Mr. Mace told The Independent of London in 2011. “So why not? Why not complete this relationship, after so many years?”
A year later, after the New York State Legislature legalized same-sex marriage, they did. In August 2012, Mr. Mace married his partner, who had taken the stage name Richard Adrian Dorr, near their vacation home in upstate New York. They remained together until Mr. Dorr’s death in 2016.
Mr. Mace died on May 8 at the Lillian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, N. J. He was 97. The death was confirmed by Miriam Fond, a longtime friend and voice student.
He was born Giovanni C. Mace on May 6,1920, in Providence, R. I., to immigrants from Apulia, in southern Italy. The family, with seven children, was poor. His father, Nicola, worked as a cobbler. His mother, the former Carmella DiMaio, was a homemaker who died when he was 4.
After learning the singing exercise solfeggio from an older brother, he took voice lessons at a school sponsored by the Works Progress Administration and at 14 was singing on a local radio station with the Pawtucket Boys’ Club Harmonica Band. By his teens, he had Anglicized his first name to John.
He worked for a wholesale clothing business before being drafted into the Army soon after the start of World War II. He saw combat in Europe, earning a Bronze Star for bravery during the Battle of the Bulge and attaining the rank of first lieutenant. During a lull in battle, he received word that his application to enroll at Juilliard had been accepted.
He studied voice, earning a music degree in 1951, but decided that he was too short for leading roles in opera. Instead, his work helping other singers prepare for their recitals led him to establish a private coaching business, formalized as the John Mace Vocal Studio, which he and Mr. Dorr ran together.
In an effort to lead a conventional life, he had married Marcelle Skinner, known as Marcy, a fellow Juilliard student, in 1948. “Back then, it was the thing to do if you were gay, ” he told The New York Times in 2011. “You got married because you thought you could hide it.”
In 1950, their son, Paul, was born. The relationship with Mr. Dorr led to a divorce, and when his wife decided that her husband was better suited to raise a child, the two men became parents, a highly unusual arrangement at the time.
Paul grew up calling Mr. Mace “Pop” and Mr. Dorr “Unc.” As a teenager, pressured by his friends, he turned against his father and Mr. Dorr. Their estrangement deepened after he embraced Scientology, which regards homosexuality as a sickness.
Paul enjoyed a reasonably successful acting career in television and films, playing Wimpy Murgalo, one of the four gang members in “The Lords of Flatbush” (1974) , and Rat, in the Sylvester Stallone movie “Paradise Alley” (1978) . He died in a motorcycle accident in 1983.
Mr. Mace flourished as a vocal coach. He trained opera singers initially but broadened his business to include actors on the Broadway stage. The business never advertised, relying instead on word of mouth.
His technique, he explained in an unpublished interview with his great-niece Noelle Messier, was to develop muscles, even if that meant producing ugly sounds along the way. “In the simplest description, you’ ve got to sing vowels, ” he said. “How you sing them will allow certain muscles to grow in your larynx and will give you more range, more dynamics.”
He helped Vanessa Redgrave and Natasha Richardson prepare for their joint performance in Stephen Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music” in 2009. When Bette Midler wanted to “line up her voice, ” as she put it, before a demanding Las Vegas run, she turned to Mr. Mace. His other clients included the ventriloquist Shari Lewis, Raquel Welch, Tammy Grimes, Hal Linden, Kim Basinger and Morgan Freeman.
He is survived by a brother, Edward, and a granddaughter.
For decades, he said, he thought of his relationship as a marriage and, with time, chafed at not being able to use the term. For that reason, in his 90s he threw himself into the cause of changing law and public opinion.
He lived long enough to usher in a new era. “We are no longer second-class citizens, ” he told People, shortly before his marriage ceremony. “It is wonderful to tie the knot and know that for the next generation, that’s there.”
