Perhaps Gloria is not the best song by Umberto Tozzi (Turin, 1952) and not even the most popular. Ti amo , for example, surpasses it in listening on Spotify. And I will walk and You were successes in half of Europe before her. But Gloria , a curiosity for the year 1979 because she mixed the great Italian ballad with winks to disco music, is probably the one that has reported the most money. He was 16 weeks in the Italian top 10 , was number one in Switzerland and in Spain (in a version in our language sung by Tozzi himself) and climbed to the main positions of Austria, Belgium, Holland, France and Germany. The song became famous in the rest of the world thanks to an English version of the American Laura Branigan who was part of the Flashdance soundtrack in 1982 and became one of the most successful musical pieces of that year.
“I don't want to say anything, I don't intend to give interviews. I have forgiven her for all the damage she did to me and our son, ”Umberto Tozzi told the 'Corriere della Sera' after hearing about the news of Scialò's death
But who is Gloria? The public wondered, always ready to create a legend around a song that bears a woman's name. The muse of this song - and other successes mentioned as Ti amo - was called Serafina Scialò and was a couple of the singer between 1979 and 1984. After the Christmas holidays of 2019 she did not return to the center where she worked as a cleaner (although she had had a successful career in the seventies and eighties as press officer of several artists). It was when his co-workers finally decided to call the police. On Friday, January 17, the carabinieri found Serafina dead at age 63 at her home in Udine, a small Italian city in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region.
But how does the one who was a couple and muse of one of the most successful Italian composers end up in such a sad situation? Serafina and Umberto never married (as Tozzi clarified) and had a son named Nicola Armando in 1983. The separation came shortly after and the little one became a focus of conflict. According to Tozzi, Serafina washed her son's brain to antagonize him and that's why Nicola Armando was always reluctant to meet him. As if that were not enough, Umberto accused Serafina of having appropriated 450 million lire (almost 240,000 euros at the time, which with inflation would amount to almost 730,000 today) by collecting two blank checks that he had given him for cover child support.
'Gloria', by Umberto Tozzi, in its original Italian version. The same singer also sang it in Spanish with great success in our country.
The matter was put in the hands of lawyers and Serafina was about to go to prison, but according to the version that Tozzi told Corriere della Sera , even though she "had left him on the street", he abandoned the accusation "because it was the mother ”of her son. He added: “I don't want to say anything, I don't intend to give interviews. I have forgiven her for all the damage she did to me and our son. ”
His son did give an interview. And what an interview. It was for the same newspaper and was dispatched at ease against his father. “I move around the world like Nicola, not like Tozzi. When I introduce myself I say: 'I am Nicola Armando, a pleasure'. I only add Tozzi if I really have to. And if you ask me if I am a relative of Umberto, I answer no. ”
"My first memories are the discussions over the phone, always through a third party," the couple's son explained. "My parents only spoke through lawyers and I was in the middle." From her mother, Nicola recalls that she was a brilliant press agent who not only worked for her father, but also for Donna Summer or the Village People. “But it was fragile. When he separated, he fell into self-destruction, ”he said.
Nicola's version differs from that of his father: Umberto says that the late Serafina never allowed her to see her son, but Nicola states in the Corriere that she encouraged him to call his father and he looked for him many times, but he He found his rejection. He also wanted to clarify the accusation of theft that, according to Tozzi, made him take Serafina to court. "It's false. Since they weren't married, she was pregnant with me and he was traveling a lot, [Tozzi] gave him two blank checks just in case. But she never cashed anything." Nevertheless, it is not closed to a new meeting. “I would like to have time to talk, he and I alone,” says Nicola.
Gloria Cuzzi, one of Serafina's few friends, also spoke and, to what seemed like a story of spite, she joined the love tragedy, very much in spirit with the Italian ballad if one thinks about it: “He always continued to love Tozzi. He was the only man for her. ” Some Italian media rushed to initially consider the option of suicide, but as Corriere confirmed, death was due to natural causes, a heart attack probably.
Scialò was buried on January 29 in the Udine cemetery. Tozzi did not come. His son Nicola Armando remained in the front row with sunglasses before a discreet coffin, with a bouquet of flowers on top. She said during the ceremony: "She was a strong and ingenious woman, but was consumed as a candle."
The song Gloria seems to be chasing a certain curse. Laura Branigan, the singer who made her famous in the United States, died of an aneurysm at age 52. And Sunny Johnson, the actress who appeared in the famous Flashdance sequence where this version sounds and was instrumental in her international success, died at 30 due to a stroke.
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