The Italian singer Toto Cutugno, famous in Italy and abroad for his hit Un italiano vero and his victory at Eurovision in 1990 with Insieme: 1992, died at the age of 80 on Tuesday August 22 in Milan (North), announced his manager.
“After a long illness, the singer’s condition had worsened in recent months,” said Danilo Mancuso, quoted by the ANS agency. “Ciao a Toto Cutugno, un Italiano vero”, immediately reacted on X (ex-Twitter) the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni.
His biggest hit dates back to 1983: Un italiano vero (also simply called L’italiano) was number one on the charts in Italy and Switzerland, and number two in France. The song had also won over audiences in Israel, Iran and South Korea.
The catchy chorus of this timeless hit is still a hit on the radio: “Lasciatemi cantare/Con la chitarra in mano/Lasciatemi cantare/Sono un italiano” (“let me sing/with guitar in hand/let me sing /I am an Italian”).
The clip for the song, shot on the Champs-Elysées in Paris, is a succession of rather caricatural shots about Italy and Italians: we see the singer eating pasta and flirting with the waitress.
In 1990, he won Eurovision with Insieme: 1992, a song about Europe. After Gigliola Cinquetti in 1964, he is the second Italian to win Eurovision. The following year, he presented with the latter the program of the competition which took place in Rome.
Born on July 7, 1943, Salvatore Cutugno, known as Toto Cutugno, composed for many French singers, particularly in the 1970s: from Michel Sardou (En chantant) to Mireille Mathieu via Gérard Lenorman, Joe Dassin, Johnny Hallyday, Hervé Vilard and Sheila. The singer-songwriter has also participated fifteen times in the Sanremo song festival, a real institution in the peninsula and followed each year by millions of viewers.