Article المقال ( Décembre )

 

Dalida:

The French Diva from Shubra

Written by : Prof. Essam Fattouh

Professor of  English Literature 

Department of English

Faculty of Arts – University of Alexandria

 

The world was shocked and saddened by the news of Dalida’s death, in 1987, when she took her own life with an overdose of barbiturates.

This reaction of millions of fans the world over is quite comprehensible.  The name Dalida evoked love, of which she sang so eloquently, in hundreds of songs. Her name has always, too, been associated with fun, with good times – with fabulous shows, including the immaculate TV productions, in which Dalida appeared as a queen, surrounded by dozens of professional dancers, in dresses the very epitome of chic, with wonderful colourful settings that made of each number a short operetta in its own right.

 

Dalida was not simply glamorous. She enjoyed worldwide fame. Throughout her show business career, she was always the subject of adulation, from simple fans, to statesmen and fellow actors and singers. That such a person should take her own life, leaving behind her a brief note asking fans to forgive her for having found her existence, with its challenges and tragedies, more than she could bear, is painful to reflect upon.

Dalida was born Yolanda Cristina Gigliotti to Italian immigrant parents, in Cairo, in 1933, in the working class suburb of Shubra. Her childhood was not an easy one.  At the age of ten months, she contracted an eye disease that forced her to wear a bandage over her eyes. Between the ages of three and five, she underwent several eye operations, that once again plunged her into darkness and isolation. The one thing that soothed her during these ordeals, was listening to her father playing the violin. She was bullied during her first years at school, because of her short-sightedness; to the point where she threw away her hated glasses, rather than suffer the mockery of her schoolmates.       

Her childhood was also marred by the imprisonment of her father as a potential ‘enemy alien’ by the British forces occupying Egypt during World War Two. The harsh treatment of her father in the internment camp embittered him. It changed him from the kind and loving father of Dalida’s early childhood, to an angry, violent man who threatened and beat Dalida and her mother. Dalida even came to wish her father dead. Yet when he did die, she felt an increased sense of isolation; and, probably, guilt.

From a very early age, Dalida loved the cinema.  She dreamed of pursuing a career in acting, that would lead eventually to her becoming a star. As, through amateur talent shows and concerts, the gift of her singing voice gradually became apparent to those who knew her, it came also to be noticed by producers and directors, who offered her small singing parts in their films.

In 1954, Dalida took part in a beauty contest, and was declared Miss Egypt. She was to have represented Egypt in the Miss World contest, but was prevented from attending it, on the outbreak of the Suez invasion of Egypt by Britain and France in 1956.

Dalida’s decision to migrate to France gave her the opportunity to train as a professional singer. That qualified her for an official contract to sing at a cabaret on the Champs Elysée. The engagement was for her the first step towards realising her dream of stardom.  She then appeared as a guest performer at the Olympia theatre, home of France’s greatest entertainers – among them Edith Piaf and Charles Aznavour.  She shared the stage with Gilbert Bécaud, and with Aznavour himself.

Dalida’s Olympia appearance was accompanied by the release of her first singles, ‘Gondoliers’, and ‘Bambino’, which quickly rose in the charts of France, Canada and Luxembourg, simultaneously. Dalida retained that initial stature for three decades, during which she toured throughout Europe and the world. The sales of her singles and albums throughout her career exceeded 170 million copies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4b1K9GBLQ4

She retained her links with the Arab world. She toured Morocco, and Algeria, where she was the first French artist to appear after the country obtained independence. Her tribute to the Arab world took the form of an album in Arabic, which included ‘Helwa, ya Baladi’, ‘Salma ya Salama’, and several other songs that became, and have remained, popular hits. Her great popularity in Lebanon was only matched by that among Egyptian audiences, who always claimed her as one of their own. In 1986, the Egyptian director Youssef Chahine cast her in the leading role in Le Sixième Jour, which won international awards. Dalida’s acting performance in the part attracted broad critical acclaim. 

By the end of her life, Dalida had a long list of prizes and honours to her name – among them, a Popularity Oscar (France, 1972); Spain’s Golden Heart award for the nation’s most popular artist (1974); Germany’s Golden Lion award (1975). In 1984, she received the accolade of France’s highest state award, the Légion d'honneur.  At her death, France issued a commemorative coin and a postage stamp in her honour. A statue in her memory stands in the Montmartre square near where she once had her home. The square itself has been re-named after her, the Place Dalida.

In 2017, Dalida, a film about the singer’s life, directed by Lisa Azuelos, with the Italian actress Sveva Alviti in the leading role, was screened in France, to appreciative audiences.  

 It is often claimed that great suffering is conducive to creativity. This is certainly true of a great artist like Van Gogh, or even of the talented Egyptian singer Abd el Halim Hafez. It is no less true in the case of Dalida. If Dalida’s eye infection continued to haunt her, requiring several operations in later life, she was even more haunted by the miserable relationship that developed between herself and her father – a relationship that seems to have drawn her to choose lovers and marriage partners among men who were deeply depressed and self-destructive.  Her unhappy love life unfolded with the intensity of classical Greek tragedy. Lucien Morisse, to whom she was married from 1956 to 1961, and who continued to be her friend after their separation, took his own life in 1970. The great love she shared with Luigi Tenco, abruptly ended when Tenco’s failure to win in the 1967 San Remo song contest precipitated his suicide. The unhappy Dalida was the first person to discover his body, on the floor in his hotel room where he had shot himself. She suffered a nervous breakdown, leading to her own first attempt at suicide. She was saved at the last moment, but remained in a coma for days. 

In 1975, Mike Brant, an artistic protégé of Dalida’s, leapt to his death, at the tragically young age of 28. Her last love to take his own life was a man named Richard Chanfray, who killed himself in 1983, by inhaling exhaust gas from his car.

 Very few people can escape from what Dalida had been through, unscathed. To transcend such tragedy, to continue – at least until the pain of living became unbearable – to offer the gift of her singing voice and her astonishing talent for the joy of millions, was no doubt her greatest victory.