Robert Goulet is hospitalized and urgently needs a lung transplant but a suitable donor has not been found yet.

The 73-year-old entertainer has been ill since late September, with the first symptoms appearing as he was flying back home to Las Vegas after a Sept. 20 concert in Syracuse, N. Y., wife Vera Goulet told the Associated Press Tuesday.

What doctors initially thought to be a virus turned out to be something more serious, as Goulet’s condition worsened and he was taken to the hospital ten days later, Mrs. Goulet said.

Goulet was diagnosed with a form of pulmonary fibrosis that his official website (www.robertgoulet.com) describes as a “rapidly progressive and fatal condition.” He was transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles as a transplant patient Oct. 13, reports the AP.

Mrs. Goulet told the agency that the actor and singer is currently heavily sedated as he awaits transplant surgery and breathing through a respirator. “He can hear me but he can't respond,” Mrs. Goulet said of the 73-year-old crooner. They were last able to speak two weeks ago.

“God willing, if we proceed with this, our doctors feel that there's no reason he will not have at least 15 years of life doing what he does, going back on stage and singing,” she said. “That's very encouraging.”

Mrs. Goulet has probably also found encouragement in the calls and e-mails she told the Associated Press she has been receiving from around the world, from fans and performers.

Fellow artists including comedian Jerry Lewis, actress Suzanne Somers, singer Harry Connick Jr., and Tony Orlando have all sent their best wishes to the couple.

Robert Goulet has three children, sons Christopher and Michael and daughter Nicolette, from two previous marriages. He and Macedonian-Yugoslavian-born Vera Chochorovska Novak have been married since 1982, according to the biography posted on his website.

Vera runs their companies ROGO & ROVE and she is also his business manager, the bio adds. “They are a team in marriage as well as in business, but most importantly, they are each other’s best friends.”

Goulet has two grandchildren, Jordan Gerard and Solange.

Born to French-Canadian parents in Lawrence, Mass., on November 26, 1933, Goulet made his career debut on Broadway in 1960, as Sir Lancelot in “Camelot.” He became a household name though his many performances on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

Ed Sullivan was one of his “most enthusiastic fans,” his bio says, and invited Goulet, dubbed “The American Baritone from Canada,” to appear seventeen times on his weekly variety show.

Goulet won a Grammy Award in 1962 for Best New Artist and a Tony Award in 1968 for his role in “The Happy Time.”