Fiorenza Cossotto - operatic mezzo-soprano

Career overshadowed by story of ‘row’ with Maria Callas

Fiorenza Cossotto is considered among the
finest mezzo-sopranos of the 20th century

Fiorenza Cossotto, a singer considered one of the greatest mezzo-sopranos of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1935 in Crescentino in Piedmont.

Cossotto was hailed for her interpretations of the major mezzo and contralto roles from mid-19th-century Italian operas, particularly those of Giuseppe Verdi such as Aida, Il trovatore and Don Carlos, but also Gaetano Donizetti, Amilcare Ponchielli, Vincenzo Bellini and the other important composers of the day.

Yet she is often remembered for a supposed spat with Maria Callas that led the Greek-American soprano to walk off the stage during her final performance at the Opéra in Paris of her signature role in Bellini’s Norma in 1965.

The incident in question took place immediately after Callas, as Norma, and Cossotto, as Adalgisa, had joined in their duet ‘Mira, o Norma’.

Callas, by that stage a little below her prime, was notoriously temperamental and within moments onlookers were imagining a row, theorising that Cossotto had tried to sabotage Callas’s performance by holding her own high notes longer and singing over Callas.

It did not help that Franco Zeffirelli, whose production it was, and at least one other member of the cast, would not deny that this had happened.

Cossotto led a long and highly
successful career

Cossotto herself, now entering her 84th year, insists that the story is a fabrication concocted “to enrich books and articles” and that she was trying only to help Callas, who was unwell with a cold but felt obliged to sing because Aristotle Onassis, the Greek shipping tycoon with whom she shared her life, had brought with him his entire entourage to witness the performance.

In interviews many years later she said that when Callas tried to sing the high ‘C’ required of her in the piece no sound came out. She said: “I thought it was better I sing my ‘A’ calmly so people won't notice, just in case. Instead, they started to say, 'Look, she sings when the other one doesn't sing anymore!'”

Cossotto also claims that Callas, whom she counted as a friend, not only asked for her in person to be Adalgisa to her Norma in the production but, during the performance, asked her not to leave the theatre after her involvement ended so that they could take the curtain calls together, something she would not have done had the two been at odds.

As a girl, Cossotto attended the Turin Academy of Music and studied with Mercedes Llopart. She made her operatic debut in the world premiere of Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites in 1957 at La Scala in Milan. Her part was so small he had only one line to deliver.

Maria Callas: Cossotto denied that the two
fell out, insisting they were good friends

Her international debut came at the 1958 Wexford Festival as Giovanna Seymour in Donizetti's Anna Bolena and she performed at Covent Garden for the first time in 1959 as Neris in Luigi Cherubini's Médée, with Callas in the title role.

Cossotto began to attract wide acclaim following her 1962 performance of the lead in Donizetti’s La favorita at La Scala. She made her American debut in the same role in 1964 at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and as Amneris at the Metropolitan Opera in 1968.

In two spells at the Met, in 1967–68 and 1988–89, Cossotto gave 148 performances.

During her career, she was Adalgisa alongside the Normas of Callas, Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballé, Leyla Gencer, Elinor Ross and Elena Souliotis, although she said she drew more satisfaction from singing Amneris in Aida and Azucena in Il trovatore.

Cossotto was married to the Italian bass Ivo Vinco until they divorced after more than 40 years together.  They had a son, Roberto.

She celebrated her 70th birthday in 2005 by appearing in Giacomo Puccini’s one-act opera Suor Angelica at the Théâtre Royal in Liège, Belgium.  Since retiring as a performer, she has accepted a number of invitations to teach.

She still lives in Crescentino, as does her son and his family.  Ivo Vinco died in 2014.

Crescentino, with the rice fields in the distance

Travel tip:

Crescentino is a village in the province of Vercelli in Piedmont, located about 35km (22 miles) northeast of Turin and about 30km (19 miles) southwest of Vercelli.  Some of the village was destroyed during the Second World War when houses were set on fire by German troops as part of an ongoing conflict with Italian partisans. After the war the area prospered through rice production in the Po Valley.  The main square, Piazza Vische, contains a 13th century church and the 31m Civic Tower. On the outskirts of the village is the Sanctuary of the Madonna del Palazzo.

The Piazza Cavour in Vercelli

Travel tip:

The rice fields of the Po Valley form the largest rice production area in the whole of Europe, mainly centred on the province of Vercelli, between Milan and Turin, in which the town of Vercelli is surrounded in the summer months by submerged paddy fields, for which water is supplied by a canal from the Po River.  Rice has been grown in the area since the 15th century.

More reading:

The diva who came to blows with a rival on stage

How Franco Zeffirelli bestrode the opera and the cinema

Verdi: When Italy mourned the loss of a national icon

Also on this day:

1891: The birth of racing car engine designer Vittorio Jano

2006: The death of actress Alida Valli


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Edda Dell’Orso – vocalist

Soprano was wordless voice of Morricone soundtracks

Dell'Orso was 29 when she began her long
association with Ennio Morricone

The singer Edda Dell’Orso, best known for the extraordinary range of wordless vocals that have featured in many of composer Ennio Morricone’s brilliant film soundtracks from the 1960s onwards, was born on this day in 1935 in Genoa.

Her collaboration with Morricone began when he was contracted in 1964 to provide the musical score for A Fistful of Dollars, the first of Sergio Leone’s so-called spaghetti western trilogy that was to make Clint Eastwood an international star.

Leone’s producers could only offer Morricone a small budget, which meant his access to a full orchestra was limited, forcing him to improvise and create sound effects in different ways. One idea he had was to replace instruments with human voices, which is where Dell’Orso, a distinctive soprano, came into her own.

Born Edda Sabatini, she had pursued her musical interests with the support of her father who, while not musical himself, could see that she had potential as a pianist.

The quality of her voice became clear when she enrolled at the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, the renowned music school in Rome, where she graduated in 1956 in singing and piano and met her future husband, Giacomo.

Edda Dell'Orso has enjoyed a long career
in the Italian cinema

At the time, there was work to be had in Rome’s recording studios, providing backing vocals for TV and film productions, as well as recording artists.  Working for the composer Franco Potenza, Dell’Orso once performed with Frank Sinatra during a visit to Rome by the American singer, whose family originated in Sicily.

In the early 1960s, she joined I Cantori Moderni (The Modern Choristers), a choral group run by the composer Alessandro Alessandroni, a lifelong friend of Morricone and the man to whom he turned when he needed to be imaginative in his soundtrack for Leone.

It was Alessandroni’s musicians who provided the whistling and the twanging guitar in the scores for all of the Dollars trilogy. On hearing Dell’Orso, the group’s solo soprano, Morricone realised, he said later, that he had "an extraordinary voice at my disposal".

As Dell’Orso recalled in a recent interview, it was hardly glamorous work.  Rather than turning up on set and rubbing shoulders with the stars, she would report to the studio, and after one quick read of the musical score be required to either sing with the orchestra in the hall or step into a booth, wearing headphones, to sing along with a recording.

Often, she would be at the studio all day, recording several pieces for different composers of different soundtracks. Although she would keep notes in her diary of which film and which maestro she had performed for, there were so many that she found it difficult to keep track.  Moreover, the singers had no way of knowing if a piece would be used and sometimes did not find out until a movie was released.

Listen to Dell'Orso's voice on the Ecstasy of Gold by Ennio Morricone

Nonetheless, it was the making of her.  Capable of infusing her voice with high drama, playful humour or haunting poignancy, she was called upon time and again, not only by Morricone but many other composers, including Bruno Nicolai, Piero Piccioni, Luis Bacalov and Roberto Pregadio.

In all, she worked on the soundtracks of around 60 films, for which Morricone was the lead composer in more than 30, from the Dollars trilogy to, in more recent times, Giuseppe Tornatore’s 2013 romantic mystery La migliore offerta (The Best Offer), which was entitled Deception when released in the UK.

Despite rarely being asked to sing words, many albums of Dell’Orso’s music have been released and even in her 80s she is still performing.  She lives in Rome with Giacomo, to whom she has been married for 57 years.

The facade of the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa

Travel tip:

Genoa, Dell’Orso’s home city, is the most westerly port city in the Italian mainland, situated just 177km (110 miles) from the French border.  Clinging to the coastline between the Mediterranean and the sharply rising northwestern Apennines, its metropolitan area stretches for about 30km (19 miles) from east to west, although the centre is relatively compact, comprising the centro storico (historic centre) and the Porto Antico.  Worth visiting are the Palazzo Ducale, on Piazza Matteotti, and the 12^th century Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, handsomely fashioned from black granite and white marble.

Hotels in Genoa by Booking.com

The entrance to the Cinecittà complex in Rome

Travel tip:

The heart of the Italian film industry is Cinecittà, the studio complex on Via Tuscolana, about 10km (6 miles) southeast of the centre of Rome.  Built in the Fascist era as Benito Mussolini tried to revive the at-the-time flagging Italian movie business, it is the largest studio complex in Europe.  In the 1950s, nowhere outside Hollywood produced more movies. Scenes from Roman Holiday, Beat the Devil, The Barefoot Contessa and Ben-Hur were all shot there during the 1950s, and the studios became closely associated with the director Federico Fellini.  More recently, the complex has provided sets representing the interiors of both St Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel for a 2016 TV series, The Young Pope.

Book your stay in Rome with Booking.com

More reading:

Ennio Morricone, the maestro of film music

The distinctive style of Sergio Leone

The Oscar winnner Giuseppe Tornatore

Also on this day:

1740: The birth of Giambattista Bodoni - printer and type designer

1907: The death of poet Giosuè Carducci 

1918: The birth of designer Achille Castiglioni

1970: The birth of footballer Angelo Peruzzi

1979: The birth of multiple world motorcycling champion Valentino Rossi

(Picture credits: Ducal Palace at Genoa by Andrzej Otrębski; Cinecittà Studios by Emanuela Meme Giudici; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Assunta ‘Pupetta’ Maresca – camorrista

Ex-beauty queen who avenged death of husband

Assunta Maresca's good looks concealed
a ruthless, violent streak

Assunta Maresca, the mobster’s wife who made headlines around the world when she walked into a bar in Naples in broad daylight and shot dead the man she suspected of ordering the murder of her husband, was born on this day in 1935 in the coastal town of Castellammare di Stabia.

Better known as ‘Pupetta’ – the little doll – on account of her small stature and stunning good looks, Maresca took the law into her own hands after her husband – a young and ambitious camorrista and the father of her unborn child - was assassinated on the orders of a rival.

Her extraordinary act brought her an 18-year prison sentence, of which she served about a third, yet made her a figure of such public fascination that several movies and TV series were made about her life.

She went on to become the lover of another mobster and was alleged to have participated in Camorra activity herself, serving another jail term after she was found guilty of abetting the murder of a forensic scientist, which she denied.

Assunta Maresca was born into a world of crime.  Her father, Alberto, was a smuggler specialising in trafficking cigarettes; her uncle, Vincenzo, a Camorra boss who had served a prison sentence for killing his own brother.

Her family were known as i Lampatielli, from the word ‘lampo’, meaning lightning, for the speed at which they wielded a knife. Assunta had a violent streak and was once arrested for seriously wounding a fellow pupil, although she escaped conviction after her victim, on leaving hospital, withdrew her complaint.

Maresca on the day of her wedding to Pasquale Simonetti,
who would be dead within a matter of weeks

At the age of 19 she entered and won a beauty pageant at Rovigliano, a few kilometres along the Bay of Naples coast from Castellammare.  It was not long after that when she caught the eye of Pasquale Simonetti, ostensibly a worker in the Naples fruit and vegetable market but also a contraband cigarette dealer and the enforcer for a Camorra cartel that fixed the prices of produce, controlled supply and selected the buyers, often through violent coercion.

With the family’s blessing they were married at the Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary of Pompei – the cathedral in the modern town of Pompei, a short distance from the celebrated Roman ruins – in April 1955.

Pasquale, a big, broad man from Palma Campania, a village about 25km (15 miles) from Naples on the other side of Mount Vesuvius, promised to change his life for Assunta but did not have the chance. Ambitious enough to be seen as a threat by other gang bosses, just three months after the wedding, on July 16, he was killed by Gaetano Orlando, a hitman hired by gang boss Antonio Esposito.

Heavily pregnant, a devastated Assunta soon discovered who was responsible.  She believed that the police knew as well but, for one reason or another, chose not to make an arrest. With her younger brother, Ciro, she travelled to San Giovanni in Rotondo, some 230km (143 miles) away in Puglia, in order to plan her next move well away from Esposito’s sphere of influence.

Maresca believed family honour dictated
that she avenged her husband's death

It was from there that she drove back to Naples a little under three weeks later and arranged to meet Esposito in a bar on Corso Novara, a few steps from the city’s main railway station at Piazza Garibaldi.  In her handbag was the Smith and Wesson revolver Pasquale had handed to her on their wedding day in a symbolic gesture as he pledged to reform his life.

As soon as Esposito identified himself she drew it, gripping it in both hands as she pulled the trigger. Esposito fell to the floor and once satisfied he was dead Assunta and Ciro left horrified customers to contemplate what they had just seen.

She was arrested a couple of months later and detained in the prison at Poggioreale, not far from the city’s Capodichino airport, where she gave birth to her son, Pasquale Jnr.

It was four years before the case came to trial.  The New York Times and Time magazine were among a swathe of news organisations that covered the trial and crowds gathered every day outside the courtroom in such numbers that the court decided to set up microphones and speakers so that proceedings could be followed outside.  There were factions, who called themselves Pupettisti – those vocally supporting Pupetta – and Antipupettisti, who were against her.

Assunta argued that she acted out of passion and self-defence, fearing she would also be killed.  But the prosecuting magistrate argued successfully that the killing was part of a wider gang war. Orlando was jailed for 30 years for murdering Simonetti, Assunta received an 18-year sentence for killing Esposito and her brother, Ciro, 12 years for his role in facilitating Assunta’s crime.

The sentence for Assunta was reduced to 13 years and four months on appeal, with Ciro acquitted altogether. Assunta, who became a leader among her fellow female inmates in jail, was pardoned in 1965.

Maresca (right) with the actress Manuela Arcuri, who
portrayed her in a 2013 TV drama

She admitted later that the killing, although driven by grief, was also a matter of honour. She planned to take over Pasquale’s criminal activity and knew that to do so she would have to command respect, which in the Camorra world meant being seen to avenge her husband’s murder personally.

On her release, she took advantage of her celebrity, actually playing herself in a 1967 movie based on her life, and trading on her glamorous notoriety by opening two fashion shops in Naples.

She took up with another mobster, Umberto Ammaturo, with whom she had twins, Roberto and Antonella, although they never married.

The relationship survived despite the death in 1974 of Pasquale Jnr, who was determined to be a worthy son to his late father by becoming a significant figure in the Camorra.  He was killed in an ambush and Pupetta suspected her partner, who had been a rival of her husband and always felt uneasy with Pasquale Jnr’s ambitions.

In time, though, they drifted apart and separated in 1982, when Pupetta was jailed following the murder of Aldo Semerari, a corruptible psychiatrist, criminologist and forensic scientist who had previously offered ‘helpful’ diagnoses on behalf of the Nuova Famiglia, the arm of the divided Camorra to which Pupetta and Ammaturo were affiliated, but had jumped ship to keep rival boss Raffaele Cutolo, head of the Nuova Camorra Organizzata, out of jail by testifying that he was insane.

She was eventually released for lack of evidence but, on suspicion of Camorra association, all her assets were seized. Nowadays, in her 80s, Pupetta has become a reclusive figure, reportedly dividing her time between apartments in Castellammare and the resort of Sorrento, some 20km (12 miles) further along the bay.

The celebrated director Francesco Rosi made a film, La sfida, about her life in 1958 and she was the subject of a mini-series on TV as recently as 2013, when the producers were accused by some anti-Mafia campaigners of glamourising crime.

Castellammare di Stabia's bandstand - the cassa armonica -
is a famous landmark in the resort

Travel tip:

Much of Castellammare di Stabia, a resort about 30km (19 miles) from Naples that became a major centre for shipbuilding on the Bay of Naples, was built over the Roman city of Stabiae, which was destroyed along with Pompeii and other Roman towns in the Vesuvius eruption of 79AD.  Pliny the Elder, the philosopher and naval and army commander of the early Roman empire, is said to have died in the eruption.  Once a bustling resort, it is famous for the ornate cast-iron and glass bandstand on the seafront, constructed originally in 1900 and restored in 1911.

The cathedral at Pompei, where Maresca was married in 1955

Travel tip:

The impressive Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary of Pompei, the cathedral of the new Pompei in Campania, a town of around 25,000 people about 25km (15 miles) south of Naples close to the ruins of the former Roman city that attract millions of visitors every year, was built from a dilapidated former church by Bartolo Longo, a lawyer who had returned to the Christian faith after a period following alternative beliefs, over a 28-year period between 1873 and 1901. The statue of the Virgin of the Rosary that sits atop the façade was carved from a single block of Carrara marble by Gaetano Chiaromonte.

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Gigi Radice - football coach

Former Milan player steered Torino to only title in 68 years

Gigi Radici, whose coaching methods were inspired
 by the 'total football' of Dutch coach Rinus Michels

Luigi 'Gigi' Radice, the only coach to have won the Italian football championship with Torino in the 68 years that have elapsed since the Superga plane crash wiped out the greatest of all Torino teams, was born on this day in 1935 in Cesano Maderno, near Monza, some 24km (15 miles) north of Milan.

An attacking full-back with AC Milan, where he won the Scudetto three times and was a member of the team that won the 1962-63 European Cup, Radice made five appearances for Italy, including two at the 1962 World Cup finals in Chile.

He switched to coaching in 1965 after a serious knee injury ended his playing career prematurely and achieved immediate success with his local club, Monza, whom he guided to promotion as champions in Serie C.

After leading Cesena to promotion to Serie A for the first time in the Emilia-Romagna club's history in 1972-73 Radice had spells with Fiorentina and Cagliari before Torino owner Orfeo Pianelli hired him in 1975.

Stadio Comunale, now the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino,
 has been the home of Torino for much of the club's history

Torino had finished third in 1971-72 and in the top six in each of the following three seasons but were not close to breaking the dominance of city rivals Juventus, whose 1974-75 Serie A title was their third in four seasons and 16th overall.

Yet Radice transformed Torino's fortunes instantly, toppling the bianconeri at the first attempt as I granata - the Maroons - finished two points ahead of Juventus to win their seventh Scudetto and the first since the Grande Torino team of the 1940s.

Crucially, Torino beat Juventus in both of the season's derby matches, each played at the shared Stadio Comunale.  Radice's team won 2-0 as the 'home' side in December and by the same scoreline in the return fixture in March, the two games watched by a total of almost 120,000 spectators.

Radice had a reputation for taking a tough, no-nonsense approach with his players that earned him the nickname 'the Iron Sergeant' and sometimes 'the German.'  On the field, his Torino teamed played at a high tempo, pressing their opponents all over the pitch as Radice tried to implement the so-called 'total football' created by the Dutch coach Rinus Michels, of whom he was a great admirer.

Paolino Pucci with the trophy he won as
Serie A's top scorer in 1975-76

It was an antidote to the rather sterile, defensive tactics favoured by some Italian coaches and earned Radice the Seminatore d'Oro award as Serie A's best coach for 1975-76. His two strikers, Paolino Pulici and Francesco Graziani, thrived in his system, scoring 36 goals between them in the title-winning season.

For Pucci, who spent 15 seasons with the club, ending his career as Torino's all-time record goalscorer with 172 goals, it was the best season of his career, bringing him 21 Serie A goals.

Juventus reasserted their superiority in the city by winning back their crown the following season, with Radice's Torino runners-up.

Radice achieved two more top-three finishes before leaving the club in 1980, a year after he had suffered serious injuries in a road accident.  He returned for a second spell in charge in 1984, again achieving success at the first attempt when Torino were runners-up to Verona in 1984-85.

He moved on again after Torino were relegated in 1989 and his coaching career never again reached the same heights, although his Fiorentina's team were second at the half-way stage in the 1992-93 season before a row with the club's chairman, Vittorio Cecchi Gori, cost him his job.

He retired at the age of 63, having returned to his first club, Monza, where he ended on a high note by winning promotion to Serie B.  Now 82, he still lives in Monza. His son, Ruggero, one of three children, followed him into football and was a member of the Siena team that won an historic promotion to Serie A in 2003. He now coaches in the youth section at the Tuscan club.

The black and white marble facade of the Duomo in Monza

Travel tip:

Cesana Maderno is a town of around 35,000 inhabitants situated about 15km from Monza, the Lombardy city best known for its motor racing circuit, which has been the home of the Italian Formula One Grand Prix every year bar one since 1950.  The city has other attractions, including a 14th century Duomo, built in Romanesque-Gothic style with a black and white marble facade, and the church of Santa Maria in Strada, also built in the 14th century, which has a facade in terracotta. The Royal Villa, on the banks of the Lambro river, dates back to the 18th century, when Monza was part of the Austrian Empire.

Travel tip:

Although the home of Italy's former royal family and the first capital of the modern Italy, its architectural style gives Turin a different look from most Italian cities.  Dominated by Baroque palaces and churches built when Turin was part of the Kingdom of Savoy, it is sometimes called 'the little Paris' on account of the wide boulevards and white buildings that are typical of the French capital, of which the elegant 19th century cafes in the city centre are another echo.

More reading:

Nevio Scala - the coach behind Parma's golden era

Claudio Ranieri - the man who made the Leicester miracle happen

The Torino winger who became the world's most expensive footballer

Also on this day:

1926: The death of Giambattista De Curtis, songwriter who penned 'Torna a Surriento'

(Picture credit: Stadio Comunale by Peter Collins; Monza Duomo by Scruch)

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Bruno Sammartino - wrestling champion

How a sickly kid from Abruzzo became king of the ring

Bruno Sammartino

Bruno Sammartino, who found fame as a professional wrestler in the United States, was born on this day in 1935 in Pizzoferrato, a village in the province of Chieti in the Abruzzo region.

Nowadays he lives in Ross Township in Pennsylvania, about six miles north of the city of Pittsburgh.

Sammartino held the title of world heavyweight champion under the banner of the World Wide Wrestling Federation - now known as World Wrestling Entertainment - for more than 11 years in two reigns. The first of those, spanning seven years, eight months and one day, is the longest any individual has held the title continuously since it was first contested in 1963.

At his peak in the ring, Sammartino weighed in at 265lbs (120kg), yet it was something of a miracle that he survived his childhood.

Sammartino grew up in a mountainous region of Abruzzo now known as the Majella (or Maiella) National Park, still populated by bears, wolves and wild cats.  Life was tough, especially during the harsh winter months. He was the youngest of seven brothers and sisters, four of whom did not make it into adulthood.

It became tougher still during the Second World War, when the area came under German occupation. His father, Alfonso, was already in Pittsburgh, having left to find work in the steel industry. Fearing capture, his mother took Bruno and his surviving brother and sister to hide on the top of a mountain above the town, often going days without food.

The Neapolitan singer Mario Trevi gets a lift
from world champion Sammartino in New York

Bruno returned to the area for the first time six years ago, at the request of a friend who was making a television documentary, and recalled that his mother, Emilia, would have to sneak back into the town to obtain food and supplies, the journey there and back taking all day.

There was always the danger she would be spotted by German soldiers and Bruno said that as the evening approached he would sit on top of a rock, watching the path down the mountainside, anxiously waiting for her to return.  She was captured once but escaped, suffering a bullet wound to her arm but continuing the climb regardless.

Bruno himself suffered serious health problems, including a bout of rheumatic fever.  Treating him with hot blankets and leeches, Emilia somehow nursed him through.

As a result, though, when the opportunity came to join his father in Pittsburgh in 1950, he was a somewhat sickly 14-year-old, weighing only 90lb (41kg).

Unable to speak much English, he found himself picked on and bullied at school and it was this, indirectly, that led him on his chosen career path.   Determined to build himself up physically, he took up weightlifting, at which he became so good he narrowly missed out on selection for the United States team at the 1956 Olympics.

Sammartino addressing fans in 2014 alongside a more recent
wrestling favourite, Paul Levesque - better known as Triple H

He made money competing in bodybuilding contests and performing strongman stunts. Then, in 1959, he was invited to try out at professional wrestling by a Pittsburgh promoter, who saw Sammartino as a competitor likely to attract interest in his shows among the local Italian community.

Sammartino made his professional debut in December 1959 and within a year was appearing at Madison Square Garden in New York.  He became world champion in 1963. His fame took him all around the world and he became so popular that when he eventually surrendered the title for the first time at Madison Square Garden in 1971, the arena fell into a stunned silence, so quiet that Sammartino momentarily thought he had lost his hearing.

He regained the world title in 1973 and retained it this time until 1977, after which he continued in the ring for another 10 years.  After retiring he remained in professional wrestling as a media commentator and was inducted into the sport's Hall of Fame in 2013, the ceremony performed by his friend, the movie actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He married his wife, Carol, in 1959. They have three sons and four grandchildren and have lived in Ross Township since 1965.

UPDATE: This article was written in October, 2016. Sadly, Bruno Sammartino passed away in 2018 at the age of 82.

Shrouded in low cloud here, Pizzoferrato sits on a hillside
at the foot of a massive rock formation.

Travel tip:

Pizzoferrato is built on a rocky hillside on the edge of the Majella National Park and was a town that many noble families fought over down the centuries because of its strategic advantages.  It flanks an enormous rocky outcrop, on the top of which is the abandoned church of St Nicola and Madonna del Girone, which is thought to have been used once as a fortress.  Nowadays the town is a mountain holiday resort and a centre for skiing.

Travel tip:

The nearest town to Pizzoferrato is Castel di Sangro, which enjoyed some fame a few years ago when its football team, formed at the end of the Second World War, completed a journey from the lowest level of amateur football in Italy to play in Serie B, the second tier of the professional game.  For a town of only 5,500 people, this was an extraordinary achievement and became the subject of a book, The Miracle of Castel di Sangro, by the American writer Joe McGinniss.

(Main photo of Bruno Sammartino by swiftwj CC BY-SA 2.0)
(Photo of Sammartino with Triple H by Miguel Discart CC BY-SA 2.0)
(Photo of Pizzoferrato by Licia Missori CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Elsa Martinelli – actress

Tuscan beauty was spotted by Kirk Douglas

The actress Elsa Martinelli in a 1965
appearance in the TV show The Rogues

Actress and former model Elsa Martinelli was born Elisa Tia on this day in 1935 in Grosseto.

She moved to Rome with her family as a teenager and was discovered by designer Roberto Capucci in 1953 while working as a barmaid in the city.

Her stunning looks helped her to become a successful fashion model and she eventually began playing small parts in films.

As Elsa Martinelli she appeared in Claude Autant-Lara’s Le Rouge et Le Noir in 1954.

Her first important role came a year later when Kirk Douglas is said to have seen her on a magazine cover and told his production company to hire her to appear opposite him in the film, The Indian Fighter.

In 1956 she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival for playing the title role in Mario Monicelli’s Donatella.

Martinelli married Count Franco Mancinelli Scotti di San Vito and they had a daughter, Cristiana, in 1958.

Ten years later, after she had split up with her first husband, Martinelli married photographer and furniture designer Willy Rizzo.

In the 1950s and 1960s she attended lavish parties and events in Rome with celebrities such as Anita Ekberg, Maria Callas, Sophia Loren, Carlo Ponti and Harold Robbins.

More reading: Federico Fellini, film director, born 20 January, 1920

Martinelli went on to have a long string of film and television credits to her name.

She appeared in the 1992 comedy film Once Upon a Time and most recently in the television series, Orgoglio, in 2005.

The Cathedral in Grosseto
Photo by Waugsberg (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Travel tip:

Grosseto, where Elsa Martinelli was born and lived as a child, is in the centre of Tuscany, about 14 kilometers from the sea and surrounded by walls commissioned by Francesco I de Medici in the 16th century, There is a 13th century Cathedral with a façade of black and white marble as well as many beautiful old palaces in the centre of the city.


Travel tip:

Rome in the late 1950s and early 1960s was considered the most desirable place in the world in which to party. The economy was booming, designers, such as Roberto Capucci, had made the city synonymous with the word glamour and American directors flocked to make their films at Cinecittà, the studio complex south of the city. This golden era is epitomised by Federico Fellini’s film La dolce vita (The Sweet Life), featuring Marcello Mastroianni as a reporter who follows every move of the celebrities who frequent Rome’s exclusive nightclubs and live in the city’s historic, aristocratic villas.

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