Dalida Film 2005
Josephina
Dalida is a 2016 French biographical drama film about the life of singer and actress Dalida. It is written, directed and co-produced by Lisa Azuelos, and stars Sveva Alviti as Dalida.[3]
In 1967 Dalida goes to a hotel and unsuccessfully attempts suicide. Rushing to her side during recovery are her ex-husband Lucien Morisse, her ex-lover Jean Sobieski and her brother Orlando (born Bruno). The three men explain different facets of Dalida's personality: Dalida grew up a passionate music lover thanks to her violinist father in Cairo but always felt herself to be ugly because of the large glasses she wore. She was discovered in Paris by Lucien Morisse, a Parisian radio programmer who eventually fell for her and left his wife for her. Dalida became disillusioned with Morisse when he put off marriage and a child to focus on building her career. Nevertheless, she married him, but quickly began an affair with artist Jean Sobieski. She eventually left Sobieski as well, to have an affair with Luigi Tenco, a temperamental musician. Luigi commits suicide after having a breakdown and walking off stage at the 1967 Sanremo Music Festival. Dalida finds his body and it is this her friends and family believe has contributed to her mental breakdown and suicide attempt.
With the help of her brother Dalida recovers and begins to record new music and find new loves. Going to Italy to perform, she encounters a young 22-year-old student and the two embark upon a love affair. Discovering she is pregnant Dalida decides not to keep the child as she feels her lover is too young to be a responsible parent and that she does not want to raise a child without a father. She has an abortion and breaks things off with her lover.
Dalida is introduced to media personality Richard Chanfray (Nicolas Duvauchelle) and the two begin a relationship. Dalida feels safe and secure for the first time in her life, but eventually their relationship begins to crumble. Richard accidentally shoots the boyfriend of her housekeeper believing he is an intruder and Dalida is forced to pay off the family to keep him out of jail. After Richard gets jealous of her career, she records an album with him despite the fact that he is a poor singer. Dalida believes she is pregnant only to learn her abortion destroyed her uterus and any chance she may have had of becoming pregnant. At a New Year's Eve party after Richard is unpleasant to her and publicly mocks her eating disorder, Dalida finally kicks him out of her life. Sometime after he commits suicide as well.
Her career doing better than ever, Dalida acts in the film Le Sixime Jour to much acclaim and returns to Egypt where she is feted by the people. Nevertheless, she dissolves into a deep depression, becoming a shut-in with her bulimia spiralling out of control. She finally commits suicide leaving behind a note explaining that life is too difficult.
In a statement to the Agence France-Presse, Catherine Morisse, the daughter of Lucien Morisse, criticised the film for the inaccurate portrayal of her father, adding that she was not consulted during the film's production.[4]
First an actress, she made her debut in the film A Glass and a Cigarette by Niazi Mustapha in 1955. One year later, having signed with the Barclay record company, Dalida achieved her first success as a singer with "Bambino". Following this, she became the most important seller of records in France between 1957 and 1961. Her music charted in many countries in Europe and Latin America. She collaborated with singers such as Julio Iglesias, Charles Aznavour, Johnny Mathis and Petula Clark.
Although she shot a few films alongside her career as a singer, she effectively reconnected with cinema with The Sixth Day, a film by Youssef Chahine released in 1986. In France, although the film was hailed by critics, it became a commercial failure.
Dalida was deeply disturbed by the suicide of her partner Luigi Tenco in 1967. Despite this, she moved ahead with her career, forming the record label International Show with her brother Orlando, recording more music and performing at concerts and music competitions. After struggling with bouts of depression for many years, Dalida committed suicide by drug overdose on 3 May 1987.[4]
At 10 months old, Iolanda caught an eye infection and had to wear bandages for 40 days. Her father would play lullabies on the violin to soothe her. She underwent eye operations between the ages of three and five. Having to wear glasses throughout elementary school, for which she was bullied, she later recalled: "I was [sic] enough of it, I would rather see the world in a blur than wear glasses, so I threw them through the window." Iolanda attended the Scuola Tecnica Commerciale Maria Ausiliatrice, an Italian Catholic school located in northern Shubra.
In 1940, Allied forces took her father and other Italian men from their quarter to the Fayed prison camp in the desert near Cairo. When Pietro was released in 1944, he returned home as a completely different person, so violent that Iolanda and other children in the neighbourhood were scared of him. She later recalled, "I hated him when he beat me, I hated him especially when he beat my mom and brothers. I wanted him to die, and he did." Iolanda was twelve when Pietro died of a brain abscess in 1945.
In her teen years, Iolanda developed an interest in acting due to her uncle's job as a projectionist for a local cinema, and often participated in school performances at the end of the semester. She graduated in 1951, and began working as a copy typist in a pharmaceutical company the same year. While required to work to financially help her family, Iolanda still had acting ambitions.
Shortly thereafter, her best friend Miranda encouraged her to compete in Miss Ondine, a minor Cairo beauty pageant which she entered on the assurance that it was just for fun and that her mother would not find out. When Iolanda unexpectedly won second prize and Miranda won second runner-up, they were photographed and published in newspapers Le journal d'gypte and Le progrs gyptien. The next day when her mother found out, she forcibly cut Iolanda's hair short. Eventually, her mother relented and Iolanda left her job to start modelling for Donna, a Cairo-based fashion house.[8]
Three Egyptian film directors placed Iolanda in their productions; Marco de Gastyne cast her in The Mask of Tutankhamun (1954) and Niazi Mostafa cast her for a supporting role in A Glass and a Cigarette (1954),[9] on which posters she appears with her newly adopted stage name Dalila because, as she explained in 1968, "it was a very frequent name in Egypt and I liked it a lot."[10]
On 25 December 1954, Dalila left Egypt for Paris.[11] Her first residence was a room in an apartment of Gastyne's friend, the impresario Vidal. She met with a number of directors, auditioned for movie roles, but failed each time. Vidal relocated her to a smaller apartment where her first neighbour was Alain Delon (then still unknown to the wider public), with whom she had a brief relationship.[12]
Dalila's difficulty in finding acting work throughout 1955, led her to try singing. Vidal introduced her to Roland Berger, a friend and professor who agreed to give her singing lessons seven days per week at a low price. He was strict and used to yell, with Dalila responding even more loudly.[13] Their lessons sometimes ended with her slamming the door, but she always returned the next day. Seeing her progress, Berger arranged for her to perform in the cabaret Le Drap d'Or on Champs-lyses, where she was spotted by Jacques Paoli, the director of another cabaret, La Villa d'Este.[14] Paoli engaged her for a series of performances that proved popular, and Dalila received her first attention of the public in France among which was Bruno Coquatrix, the director of Olympia, who invited her to perform at his singing contest Les Numros 1 de demain. In future years, Coquatrix said: "[H]er voice is full of colour and volume, and has all that men love: gentleness, sensuality and eroticism." Dalila was also spotted by author and screenwriter Alfred Marchand, who advised to change her name to Dalida: "Your pseudonym resembles too much the movie Samson and Delilah and it won't help to boost your popularity. Why don't you replace the second 'l' with a 'd', like God the father?" She immediately accepted the change.[15]
On 9 April 1956, Dalida participated in the singing contest Les Numros 1 de demain, performing Etrangre au Paradis. Prior to the competition, Eddie Barclay, owner of the largest recording house in France, Barclay, and Lucien Morisse, artistic director of the newly established radio station Europe n1, met in Bar Romain (now Petit Olympia) and discussed what to do that evening. Barclay wanted to watch a film, whereas Morisse wanted to attend the singing competition, which was being held at Olympia Hall, then the largest venue in Paris. They settled their disagreement by playing 421, a dice game, which Morisse won.[16] Together with their friend Coquatrix, they were greatly impressed after Dalida won the contest, and arranged a meeting with her. That event was later perpetuated in biopics and books, and became regarded as fateful for Dalida's career. The three men went on to play a large part in launching her career.[17]
After the performance in Les Numros 1 de demain, Lucien handed Dalida his card to meet in his office as soon as possible, which she accepted without hesitation. A few days later, on the second floor of the building at 26 rue Franois ler, she performed "Barco Negro", a recent hit by Amlia Rodrigues, humming the a cappella verses and tapping the fingertips on a corner of Morisse's desk. Visibly satisfied, his interlocutor demanded more work on mini-flaws, for a new audition in front of Eddie Barclay in person.[18] On 2 May 1956 in Barclay's office at 20, Rue de Madrid, Dalida signed a renewable one-year contract, with a modest percentage on record sales, with the promise of increasing it if the expected success was accomplished.[19] While Morisse was responsible for radio promotion, Coquatrix had developed a strategy to grab the headlines. He planned to promote her through a series of concerts, including two concerts at the Olympia, two weeks in Bobino, and a tour of the provinces.
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