An atrocious death, one that no one would ever want to witness: this is what happened to Toto Cutugno.
Salvatore Cutugno, better known by the pseudonym Toto Cutugno, was born in Fosdinovo on 7 July 1943. He is the son of Domenico, a Petty Officer of the Navy, and Olga, a housewife. He spent his childhood and adolescence in La Spezia, where he moved with his parents and siblings Rosanna and Roberto, as his father moved to another place of work.
Dad Domenico is a trumpet player, and manages to make little Toto passionate about music: at nine he already plays the drum in the municipal band, where the father plays. A few years later he learned to play the drums self-taught. In 1956 he took part in a regional musical competition, finishing in first place. After the battery, it’s time for accordionbecause he cannot afford a piano financially.
In the 60s he began playing in the group Toto & the rockers, while in the following decade he began to perform as a soloist. Over the years he collects one hit after another, participating in 15 editions of the Festival San Remo winning it only once in 1980, with the song Only U.S. All other times he places second, third and fourth. Furthermore, over the years, some songs written by him and composed for other artists have ranked on the podium.
In 1990 he participates and wins theEurovision Song Contestcompeting with the song Together. During his career, he has sold over 100 million records, establishing himself as one of the greatest recording artists of all time. His songs have often topped the charts, along with songs written for other singers, especially for Adriano Celentano.
The illness
In the month of January 2007, Cutugno discovered that he had a bad ailment, a prostate cancer. He wasted no time, and immediately underwent surgery to remove the metastasis. In the following months he took a break from the scenes, to carry out the post-operative therapy necessary to completely eradicate the cancer. The treatment ended in August of the same year.
Already in 2008, his historical friend Pippo Baudo gave him the opportunity to return to compete at the Italian Song Festival. Cutugno takes the stage of the Ariston theater with the song A hawk locked in a cage, finishing in fourth place. This was not the only unpleasant event in the singer-songwriter’s life, but he had to face the death in first person.
The terrible death
Some time ago, Cutugno had told, during an interview for the Corriere della Sera, of having witnessed the tragic death of her sister: the little girl suffocated before her eyes. “I saw my sister Anna diethe largest, before my eyes, suffocated. He was eating dumplings and one went through her. She had 7 years and I 5. A few months later my brother Roberto was born, whom I love dearly, who fell ill with meningitis and since then, as the doctor predicted, has had a troubled lifethe singer revealed.
These are just two of the many episodes that have marked the singer’s life. In fact, he continued: “My other sister, Rosanna, was the first child to have heart surgery in Italy, in Turin. Dad got into debt for that surgery, which he finished paying in installments in 1978, two years before his death“. A painful childhood, dotted with unpleasant events that Toto Cutugno now recounts with melancholy. Episodes of this magnitude mark a child for life, but a famous saying quotes these words: “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”, and Toto Cutugno made himself strong, going ahead on his path despite everything.
