Joe Massimino; Musician for ‘Mike Douglas Show’

Joe Massimino, 63, the longtime bandleader and pianist for “The Mike Douglas Show.” Massimino grew up in Providence, R.I., and was attracted to music early while he listened to his parents’ big-band records. At 17, he was hired to play in Tommy Dorsey’s band after an audition in which he impressed the big-band leader by ripping through “T.D. Boogie,” a Dorsey tune Massimino had committed to memory. He toured with Dorsey for three years, and went on to musical associations with “Tonight Show” bandleader Doc Severinsen, singer Joe Williams and the big bands of Buddy Rich and Louis Bellson, among others. He won an Emmy during his 15 years leading the band behind talk-show host Douglas, a job that often tapped his improvisational talents. “An act might drop out an hour before air time,” he told The Times in 1994, “and I’d have to write an arrangement of a medley of songs for Mike to sing.” After the Douglas show went off the air in 1982, Massimino fashioned a second career running a deli in Orange County and playing regularly at area nightspots. On May 24 of complications from stomach cancer.