Background

Under her real name of Yolanda Gigliotti, Dalida was born in Cairo on 17th January 1933. She came from an Italian family that had emigrated to Egypt and was the only daughter between two sons, Orlando her elder brother, and Bruno, her younger. Their father Pietro was the Principal Violinist for the Cairo Opera.

The Gigliotti family, with their Calabrian roots, lived in a modest apartment in Cairo in the working-class neighborhood of Choubra.

Education

When Dalida was very young, she had to undergo two eye operations as a result of a poorly treated illness.

As a result, she had to wear glasses throughout her childhood and teenage years. It is known, that she was educated at the local school.

Career

Dalida left Egypt in 1955 to pursue a screen career in Paris. She was cast in the film Le Masque de Toutankhamen, directed by Marco de Gastyne, but much more important to her career was a short singing stint that she took on in Paris. She accepted an offer to sing in the intermission between acts at a club, La Villa d'Este, where she was spotted by Bruno Coquatrix, a producer at the Olympia Theater, the largest performing venue in the city, where figures such as Charles Aznavour and Edith Piaf had seen some of their greatest triumphs, and also by radio producer Lucien Morisse. The two took her under their wing, Coquatrix introducing her to the French public, while Morisse later married her. Record producer Eddie Barclay, a former jazz pianist, signed Dalida to a contract with his own Barclay label, and her second single, "Bambino" - which was also later a hit for the Springfields - became a huge hit in 1956. The following year, she was awarded a gold record for a million sales of the single in Europe. Her later hits included "Gondolier" (1957), "Come Prima 'Tu Me Donnes" (1958), "Les Gitans" (1958), "Ciao Ciao Bambina" (1959), "Les Enfants du Piree" (1960), and "La Danse de Zorba" (1965), the latter a vocal version of the dance from the movie Zorba the Greek. From 1960 onward, her brother, billed simply as Orlando, oversaw her recordings as a producer, and could take some credit for securing her continued success in the 1960s and beyond.

With the advent of the rock & roll era in the early '60s, Dalida adapted successfully to the new music, her recordings making use of a band with more of a beat, as she took on new material, including French versions of songs by the Drifters ("Garde-moi La Derniere Danse" etc.), the Kingston Trio ("Que Sont Devenues Les Fleurs" etc.), and others. By 1964, she'd sold an extraordinary 30 million records worldwide, though all of those sales were in the non-English speaking world, from the Middle East to Germany. Like her contemporary Petula Clark, whose career also made the jump from the 1950s to the 1960s, Dalida went through several transitions in the image - from dark hair and makeup and elegant gowns in the mid-'50s, looking like an Italian Alma Cogan, into a striking blonde in revealing outfits and shorter skirts in the 1960s and beyond, so much so that it was difficult to believe that she was the same performer. She maintained a screen career as well, appearing in over a dozen movies in France and Italy from 1955 through the end of the 1960s, ranging from spy thrillers like Rapt Aux Deuxieme Bureau (1958) to frothy sex comedies such as Menage Italian Style (1965).

Beginning in 1956, Dalida was an object of fixation for the paparazzi, who could hardly shoot an unattractive picture of the leggy, well-endowed singer/actress. Between her twin singing and movie careers, she was linked professionally, personally, and romantically in the press to a succession of men (including actor Alain Delon and Eddie Barclay) before she married Lucien Morisse, but that marriage didn't last far into the 1960s. A heavy performing schedule, coupled with an unsettled romantic life, took their toll. The singer's life took a sudden dark turn, closer to that of Edith Piaf than to Petula Clark, when her then-current lover Luigi Tenco, a singer, killed himself at the 1967 San Remo Festival after failing to qualify for a spot on the program. Dalida, who found the body, made the first of several suicide attempts soon after. Following her recovery, she restarted her career in a slightly different direction, recording more serious and thoughtful songs - among the more notable of these was "Salwa wa Sala," which translates as "Safe and Sound," which was issued to celebrate the release of Egyptian POW's from the 1973 Yom Kippur War by the state of Israel.

Although no less a figure than Norman Granz, of Verve Records fame, was interested in bringing Dalida to the United States in 1958, it took her 21 years to make her American debut. On the eve of that debut, at Carnegie Hall in New York, writer Anthony Haden-Guest described her fandom, especially in France, as cult-like in its dedication, but non-existent in the United States, where she never charted a record. Since the 1970s, when she'd adapted to the disco boom (and released the pioneering French disco hit "J'attendrai"), she'd also acquired a significant gay audience in France, which was drawn to her outsized press image and also the angst surrounding her personal life.

Her ex-husband Lucien Morisse took his own life sometime after her attempt at suicide in the wake of Tenco's death, and Haden-Guest compared her to Judy Garland, though musically she was closer to Astrud Gilberto. Dalida's later involvement marriage to a man identified as the Count of St. Germain, who turned out not to be a count and also to prefer male companionship, only added to the picture of personal life in turmoil and seemed to make her that much more alluring to her admirers. In the midst of this, she won the Oscar Mondial du Disque (World Oscar of Recording), a French award, to be sure, for her "Gigi L'Amoroso," beating out competitors that included Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night," and recorded a peace song, "Salma ya Salama," in Arabic, on the occasion of Egyptian President Sadat's peace summit with Israel. Dalida's career in the 1980s had slowed somewhat as she entered her fifties, looking at least a decade younger but no longer doing 200 engagements a year as she had in her prime.

In 1986, she returned to her native Egypt to make a film, The Sixth Day, with director Youssef Chahine, an old friend from her early career, in which she gave what the critics felt was a superb acting performance. She continued to make Paris her home, where she remained a huge concert draw during her final decade. On May 3, 1987, Dalida was found dead of an overdose of barbiturates, an apparent suicide at the age of 54. A significant cult still surrounded her in Europe more than a decade after her death - many millions of records have sold, there are several active websites and pages, and MCA-Universal, as the owners of Polygram Records (which controlled distribution on the Barclay label), has issued a three-CD box, La Legende, in France covering her life and career.

Achievements

• Dalida sold no less than 170 million albums. She recorded songs in 10 languages from French to Italian and Arabic and German. Her success was so great that she is considered today among the six most popular singers in the world. Dalida was awarded more than 70 gold records and was the first singer to receive a diamond disc.
  
  Twice honored with the Oscar Mondial du succès du disque (the "World Oscar of Recording Success"), she is the only European singer to have won this award more than once.
  
  In 1997, the corner of the rue Girardon and rue de l'Abreuvoir in Montmartre, Paris, was inaugurated as Place Dalida and a large bust in her memory was erected.

Works

More photos

• music

  • Son Nom Est Dalida 1957
  • Gondolier 1958
  • Les Gitans 1958
  • Le disque d'or de Dalida 1959
  • Love in Portofino (A San Cristina) 1959
  • Les Enfants Du Piree 1960
  • Milord 1960
  • Elle, lui et l'autre 1960
  • Rendez-vous mit Dalida 1961
  • Loin de moi 1961
  • Le Petit Gonzales 1962
  • Eux 1963
  • Amore Scusami 1964
  • Il Silenzio 1965
  • Pensiamoci Ogni Sera 1966
  • Olympia 67 1967
  • Un Po' D'Amore 1968
  • Le temps des fleurs 1968
  • Ma mère me disait 1969
  • Il Venait D'Avoir / Julien 1973
  • J'Attendrai 1975
  • Salma Ya Salama 1977
  • Dedie A Toi / Monday Tuesday 1979
  • Gigi In Paradisco 1980
  • Le Visage De L'Amour 1986

Views

Quotations: "My cinematographic experience did not leave me any souvenirs, because I was only in very bad films that no one saw! It was better they didn't! In Europe, it is rare for women singers to be in movies. And then, maybe that deep within me I didn't really wish to be in movies, for it is my belief that if I really wanted to, I'd be in the movies. I firmly believe that everybody is able to realize what their wishes, provided that they really want to."

"I believe that my dream has always been to become someone. To succeed in life, in the show, I did not know exactly what, but it was or singing or acting, or do cinema or theater... it was the show."

Personality

People remember Dalida as being elegant and charismatic, with the ability to brighten up any room she was in.

Physical Characteristics: While her tall, slender figure and good looks helped her land work as a model and minor roles in Egyptian movies, Dalida shot to fame came when she won the Miss Egypt crown in 1954.

Quotes from others about the person

• "She is unique, a pioneer in multicultural productions. I personally love all her songs. Whatever language she sang in, she still had that Arabic identity and Arabic style of singing." - Yasser Al Gergawi.

Connections

While Dalida was professionally very successful, her private life was marred by a series of failed relationships and personal problems. In January 1967, Dalida took part in the Sanremo Festival with her new lover, Italian singer, songwriter, and actor Luigi Tenco. The song he presented was "Ciao amore ciao" ("Bye Love, Bye"), which he sang together with Dalida. But stressed, Tenco failed despite Dalida's performance. Tenco committed suicide on 27 January 1967, after learning that his song had been eliminated from the final competition. Tenco was found by Dalida in his hotel room with a bullet wound in his left temple and a note announcing that his gesture was against the jury and public's choices during the competition. In September 1970 her former husband (1956-1961) Lucien Morisse, with whom she was on good terms, committed suicide, shooting himself in the head. In April 1975, her close friend singer Mike Brant leaped to his death from an apartment in Paris. He was 28. In July 1983, her lover from 1972 to 1981, Richard Chanfray, committed suicide by inhaling the exhaust gas of his Renault 25 car.

In December 1967, just after her first suicide attempt, she became pregnant by a 22-year-old Italian student, Lucio. Her decision to have an abortion left her infertile.

Father:

Pietro Gigliotti

Mother:

Filomena Giuseppina

Spouse:

Lucien Morisse

Partner:

Luigi Tenco

Friend:

Mike Brant

Partner:

Richard Chanfray

Friend:

Alain Delon

Acquaintance:

Jacques Chirac

References

• Dalida
  2017
• Dalida