LOS ANGELES -- Robert Goulet, the handsome, big-voiced baritone whose Broadway debut in "Camelot" launched an award-winning stage and recording career, has died. He was 73.

The singer died Tuesday morning in a Los Angeles hospital while awaiting a lung transplant, said Goulet spokesman Norm Johnson.

He had been awaiting a lung transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after being found last month to have a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis.  According to his wife of 25 years, Vera, Goulet had remained in good spirits even as he waited for the transplant.

"Just watch my vocal cords," she said he told doctors before they inserted a breathing tube.

Goulet's death points to the continuing organ shortage crisis.  Every day, in he U.S. 17 people die while waiting for an organ transplant.