After the tragic disappearance of her great love Luigi Tenco in 1967, Dalida became “obsessed“by death. In the book Dalida, my brother you will write my Memoirspublished by Plon editions last April, Orlando, who turns 86 this Thursday, July 28, returned to the day when he feared the worst for his sister.
The death of Luigi Tenco marks a turning point in Dalida’s life. After the tragic disappearance of the man she is in love with, found dead of a bullet in the head during the Sanremo festival in 1967, the singer has only one thing in mind: to join him. Life having become too unbearable in her eyes, Orlando’s sister thinking of ending his life. The star travels to Italy, but ultimately does not “the courage to end“, as she says herself. The instinct of life turns out to be stronger than the call of death. At that time, her relatives, who see her sinking, are worried about her. This is particularly the case of her brother, Orlando, to whom she is very close. In the book Dalida, my brother you will write my Memoirspublished by Plon editions last April, the one who turns 86 this Thursday, July 28 explains that after the disappearance of the man she loved, “the idea of death still haunts him.”
“We were living in hell“, concedes Orlando. One day, the producer is flabbergasted when he learns that Dalida has prepared a will. Eager to know more, the notary does not give in. But when the singer tells him of his intention to travel to Turin to visit “an uncle of Luigi (Tenco, editor’s note), Orlando is on alert. He has like a bad feeling. “I was sure she was going to kill herself on her grave“, he admits in Dalida, my brother you will write my Memoirs (Ed. Plon). “Like a seer, he psychologically feels the state of his sister“, we learn in this book. In addition, Dalida’s calm anguishes her: “It’s not normal, she prepares a blow“, he worries. Especially since the artist refuses that his relatives accompany him to Italy. A few days later, after having turned back, she tried to end it, by swallowing a strong dose of barbiturates in the cozy comfort of a room at the Prince-de-Galles hotel in Paris…
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Dalida “no longer the same” after her suicide attempt
Yes Dalida to escaped the worst that day, Orlando finds that this tragic event has marked his sister with a hot iron. Since her failed suicide attempt, the star has changed: “She was never the same again. She needed another food, more spiritual, because she had no education.“, confides the producer in the columns of France Sunday. After this cursed year, the one who was in a relationship with Alain Delon enters a period of introspection: “During what she called her ‘four years of winter’ (from 1967 to 1971, editor’s note), she has read the great philosophers. She made a retreat in an ashram. A wise man in India has it convinced that her mission was to sing.” Until she decided to bow out, twenty years later, in his apartment on rue d’Orchampt in Montmartre.
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