Macho Italians are shocked to find out that Lucio Dalla was gay
Such a fuss in Italy because they found out at his funeral that Lucio Dalla was homosexual and not the ‘man’s man’ they thought he was, wth his grizzled face, grizzled voice, thrown-on clothes, sailor’s earring and….dyed hair.
I suppose the fact that he never had a woman around wasn’t a really big clue. ‘Mother, I’m still waiting to find the right girl.’
Now there’s a big squabble on between those who think he was a hypocrite for keeping it so well hidden and then getting a big church funeral at the end. Why, doesn’t the Catholic Church in Italy bury those who live in homosexual or extra marital relationships? That’s news to me, and it’s probably news to the rest of Italy, too, where even Mafia bosses get a religious send-off and burial in a Catholic cemetery.
And so it should be, with a religion that bases itself on forgiveness, prodigal sons and lost sheep.
The news about Dalla was revealed at the end of his funeral mass, would you believe, by none other than his lover of 10 years, who had for all that time been variously introduced as ‘my colleague’, ‘my friend’, ‘one of my backing singers’ or ‘a collaborator’.
He delivered a panegyric about their relationship in the time-slot usually reserved for tributes by family and friends.
After a decade of going unacknowledged, Marco Alemanno must have decided he was going to get that acknowledgement at last when his ‘collaborator’ was lying in a coffin before him and unable to stop him.
Or maybe he had his permission first.
If he did not, then I seriously disapprove. Whatever people’s wishes were in life, you have to respect them in death. It’s not a very loving act to go against those wishes just to get some acknowledgement for yourself. Or as one journalist sarcastically remarked in print: maybe he wants a share of his estate.
As for those who said that Dalla was a hypocrite, when will we learn that if people want to keep their sexuality private, then they have every right to do so? It’s not as if Dalla went out of his way to prove a point, like Silvio Berlusconi, with lots of sexy women around.
To demand that everyone puts their sexuality on public view is the opposite of liberal. It is totalitarian and Stalinist.
If people live and behave with dignity, just leave them alone. We’re not talking here of a married father caught cottaging for boys in some public latrine while demanding respect as an elected representative of the people. That’s a different matter entirely.
If we find out that Silvio Berlusconi is gay, something that I’ve long suspected, then yes, that would be a news story. But only because of his behaviour and his determination to prove the opposite.
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It isn’t anyone’s business what Dalla got up to in the privacy of his bedroom so long as he did not do it in the middle of Piazza Cinquecento in full view of the whole world during peak traffic hours.
And why should he not have got a church funeral service?
What a bunch of hypocrities these Italians are. If he was a randy old goat leaving behind a dozen offspring by four different mistresses, or a Mafia don, would that have been all right?
The news shocked the Italians because Dalla was the author of beautiful love-songs which he sung with that strong passion for music; people automatically thought that they were about women.
He focussed on the professional side of his life, as most professional people do, so I would like to think that the news that his partner of ten years mentioned it after his death could only mean that his partner wanted to make the headlines.
And he managed to do that, although I believe many Italians knew he was gay.
Dalla just never made a big fuss about it. What’s the fuss after all? Don’t people have a right to be whatever they are without the need for public approval?
Think about all the fabulous love songs by Elton John.
Italy needs to grow up and join its peers economically and socially . Unfortunately this beautiful country is about 20 years behind in both aspects .
It’s highly probable he did not have his permission and could be about the estate. Dalla notoriously guarded his private life which included a multitude of charities.
Even that paragon of old school Italian, Pippo Baudo, condemned what he called a ‘violation of his right to rest in peace’
He did treat the subject with inimitable subtlety.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=GdthX65CMp4
The ending says it all.
My favourite Italian singers, apart from Lucio Dalla, are Riccardo Cocciante, Angelo Branduardi, Franco Battiato, Rino Gaetano (died 1981) and Renato Zero. Seems that Branduardi is the only one who is married out of all these. Who cares whether the others are straight or gay? We like their work, not their private life.
Not to be fickle, but which Renato Zero?
Here he is in the early days, a walking jamboree.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwpjBxDzqr0
The Italians would do anything for a bit of sensationalism nowadays. How else would Barbara D’Urso, Massimo Giletti, Mara Venier and Federica Panicucci fill up their programs if it wasn’t from these mountains made out of molehills?
Marco Alemanno was right to speak out. Dalla’s cousins started cropping up from everywhere to claim their share of his estate.
Duh. Seriously. Duh. Someone with that sort of money, power and fame, who isn’t inside supermodels 24/7 has to be gay. And I don’t mean male supermodels.
There are many straight performers who don’t treat women as some sort of sex objects. I admired Lucio Dalla for his work and for his seriousness in his private life and that he didn’t dangle his merchandise here and there, and he WAS popular with the young generation.
He was in fact a true intellectual given his childhood background. He was a piccolo grande uomo. And shame on that imbecile Alemanno. He should not have been given the microphone. One woman said on Domenica In on RAI, quite correctly, that nobody should have applauded him.
Ferrara made a great comment on RAI’s Qui Radio Londra, about those who felt “scandalised” by this “great revelation”. One can watch it on the Tube.
His partner was well out of order to reveal his sexuality at the funeral. It is very hurtful for the family.
Sexuality should be a private matter if so one wishes and no one should be outed by anyone, except for specific examples like secretly gay MPs who make homophobic statements, to mask their own sexuality or to curry favour with electors.
Excellent writing, Daphne!
I had the pleasure and honour to have met him way back in 1964, here in Malta. Even then, I was most impressed by his super talent … and thought he might be “gay”.
So what? What difference does it make?
Great artist, great gentleman – THAT’s what matters. I believe he was a devout Catholic and, since our religion doesn’t exactly accept homosexuality, that’s why, dear Dalla probably kept it all “in the closet”.
I will not be surprised if, sooner or later, we hear that he did not wish to be “rejected” by the Catholic Church.
“If he did not, then I seriously disapprove.”
I would hate it if someone I was romantically involved with kept on calling me his friend, colleague or business partner.
And I am sure that all men and women would feel the same. Imagine the person you love trying to make sure that no one in the world knows it or sees it.
So if he had permission from Mr Dalla or not, I think it s fair enough to do what he did. It must have been tough for him to live in the shadows like a seedy secret or a threat to his partner’s career.
The only scenario where that might be fine between the two people involved is when neither of them are open about their sexuality and want to keep it a secret, in case people “find out ” But that situation is also very sad.
I used to live in Rome in the mid 80s and I have always know that Dalla was gay. We keep harping about everybody’s right to a personal life but we still have a VERY long road ahead to actualy get to the point of not having these phobias about people of different sexual orientation.
Until we get to the day that a person’s sexual preferences are actually ‘ not a news item’ then we will never really be free from this prejudice way of seeing things. Would it be news value if Lucia Dalla loved chocolate ice-cream instead of vanilla? Would anybody make a fuss about that?
The world will be in a better place when sexual orientation is not of news value.
I was surprised that the Catholic Church in Italy does not allow funerals for declared homosexuals. Well if the church wants to save on burial costs it could save a lot of money by not giving burials to homosexual priests.
We have a long way to go.
[Daphne – I’m quite sure that’s a misconception.]
What do you mean Daph regarding a misconception?
[Daphne – About the funerals. Surely not.]
In the Maltese Diocese these panegyrics and tributes to the deceased are not allowed.
It is recounted that once the saintly Dun Gorg was pressed to celebrate mass in a funeral of a businessman, he tried hard to avoid the whole ‘charade’ but succumbed to the pressure of the deceased’s relatives.
During mass he told the congregation that the night before he dreamt about the dead person going down head first straight to hell.
[Daphne – I think it is unfortunate that tributes to the deceased, and personal speeches, are banned. That’s why Catholic funerals in Malta are so awful and impersonal. They shouldn’t ban the personal element just because some speakers are terrible and behave inappropriately. If the speaker is good, this lends dignity, grace and meaning to a funeral which is otherwise very much a case of ‘there goes another one and let’s all stand about on the parvis meeting and greeting and making sure we’re seen.’]
Some interesting reading on the subject:
http://www.bssky.org/?page=newsforward&name=bssky.org&article=1931
For once you got your information very wrong.
Everyone in Italy knew that Lucio Dalla was gay! Great article nonetheless but the premiss is totally false!
And what makes you all think their relationship was more than Dalla used to call it? This guy always wanted a bit of the limelight around Dalla until he managed to get into his team and make himself almost indispensable to his idol.
It was very, very bad taste for Alemanno to do that during the funeral. Dalla was coherent enough to say it himself had he wanted to.
The fact he never did was because it either was not the truth or because he wanted to keep his private live ‘private’.
God help us, the time will come when we’re almost embarrassed to say we’re straight. The fact is nobody cares who you spend your intimate moments with so all these gay ‘come-outers’ would do much better to keep their private matters to themselves.
Straight people do not go around expecting food vouchers for sleeping with their spouses – so just cut it out and carry on with your lives and let us carry on with ours.
Actually you are wrong. There are many people who care what sexuality you are and I m not just talking about those bible-bashing conservatives who would go out of their way to slander someone all in the name of their values.
Music labels and publicists, producers, agents and all those involved in a celebrities career are often against homosexual artists and celebrities coming out. Would Ricky Martin have been as big a success as he was had he been out from the start?
[Daphne – Or George Michael…And even further back in time, Rock Hudson.]
You might say yes, but if you look at how he was marketed you will see that it mainly revolved around his sex appeal. Few girls would go crazy for a man who is gay and for obvious reasons.
And many good-looking gay men who are involved in the music industry or film industry would never come out not because they want to “keep their private life secret”. They do it because they are afraid that a label won’t sign them because that label will only think in terms of how to market them and getting teenage girls to scream and go wild is often a big tool to use.
It helps sell because sex sells.
And that mantra is what keeps them from coming out to anyone – even to their own families. And once they have built their marketing plan on being a heart-throb they fear that coming out would be professional suicide. And it might very well be so.
And it is not just in the music industry. Actually there are quite a few professional footballers in the UK who are gay. Their team mates know, of course, and don’t care. But they are forced to not let anyone know because of how fans would react. There was an article in Metro about it.
You seem to be talking from the point of view of someone who does not care about what it is like to come out to people. Ask any gay man or woman and they will always tell you that it was hard to begin with.
Then, depending on how their friends and family reacted, they might say that after it became easier. It is a very painful process for the person coming out and should always be treated carefully and with compassion.
I think it is very naive to think that no one cares because many people do for all the wrong reasons, be they values or cash flow. It is a reality that many people are aware of.
Things are changing now, it is true, but only recently. The 80s and 90s were all very different.