But the aging entertainment idol, who at one point began sporting a mustache, became something of a camp icon whose old-school show-biz image made him ripe for satire on TV shows such as "Saturday Night Live" and "The Simpsons."
Goulet didn't object and, in fact, periodically spoofed his Vegas persona, including appearing as himself in a series of wacky commercials in the `90s to promote ESPN's college basketball schedule and, more recently, a goofy commercial spot for Emerald Nuts.
"If you can't laugh at yourself, you're a fool," Goulet told the Orange County Register in 1996. "I don't like those who pat themselves on the back. My job is to entertain, not to go out there and be myself."
Added Goulet: "I wish I knew the secret of my endurance. Perseverance, maybe. I want to be better than I sound. You can be tired or in pain, but you must perform for those people. You give it your best shot."
Born Nov. 26, 1933, in Lawrence, Mass., Goulet grew up in the city's French-Canadian enclave (his father was born in Quebec and his Maine-born mother also had family ties to Quebec).
Goulet learned early on that he had a talent for singing.
"When I was 6," he once recalled, "I refused to sing at a family party. My father scolded me and said I must not waste God's gift."
While growing up, Goulet told the Toronto Star in 2005, "I sang in the church choir, but I didn't think much of it. Then one night when I was 13, my [ailing] father called me to his bedside and said, 'Robert, God gave you a voice. You must sing.' He died later that night" of Hodgkin's disease.
After his father died, the Goulets moved to Alberta, eventually settling on his grandfather's farm 200 miles north of Edmonton.
By 16, Goulet was singing with the Edmonton Symphony. "I sang two songs with the Summer Pops and they gave me $25," he recalled. "I said, 'You get paid, too?' and that was the first time I thought there might be something in this after all."
After graduating from high school, he spent two years as a disc jockey and announcer for an Edmonton radio station. After appearing in a 1951 production of Handel's "Messiah" in Edmonton, he won a scholarship to the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto.
While studying singing and acting at the conservatory, he began performing on television, in theater and in revues.
Goulet was a popular regular on "Showtime," Canada's leading television variety program -- he was dubbed "Canada's first matinee idol" and had a growing number of fan clubs -- when he auditioned for "Camelot."
