1. Toto Cutugno was best known for his worldwide hit song, "", released on his 1983 album of the same title.
17 Facts About Toto Cutugno
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Toto Cutugno was born on 7 July 1943 in Tendola, a borough of Fosdinovo, Lunigiana, Tuscany, to a Sicilian sea marshal father from Barcellona Pozzo di Gotto and a housewife mother from Tuscany.
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Toto Cutugno began his musical career as a drummer, and at 19 he founded his first band,.
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Toto Cutugno later formed the disco band Albatros together with Lino Losito and Mario Limongelli.
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In 1980, Toto Cutugno returned to the Sanremo Music Festival and won the competition with the song "".
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In 2013, Toto Cutugno was awarded a lifetime career award at the Sanremo Festival.
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In 1990, at the refusal of Sanremo winners Pooh, Toto Cutugno, who had placed second, was invited to represent Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest in Zagreb.
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Toto Cutugno went on to win the contest with his own original composition "", a ballad which celebrated European political integration and the establishment of the European Union.
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Aged 46 years, 302 days, Toto Cutugno became the oldest winner of the contest to date, surpassing the record set by Andre Claveau in 1958.
10.
Toto Cutugno's record stood until 2000, when the Olsen Brothers won the contest.
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Outside of Italy, Toto Cutugno often toured in the United States, regularly performing in New York City and Atlantic City; he toured Australia three times, represented by Italo-Australian impresario Duane Zigliotto.
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Toto Cutugno rejected the accusations, describing himself as apolitical and highlighting how he had refused to perform in Crimea following its 2014 Russian occupation.
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When he was five, Toto Cutugno witnessed the death of his seven-year-old sister Anna, who choked on a gnocchi.
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Toto Cutugno was married to Carla from 1971 until his death.
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In 2007, Toto Cutugno was diagnosed with prostate cancer with metastases reaching his kidneys, undergoing surgery and having his right kidney removed.
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Toto Cutugno regarded his colleague Al Bano as the one who helped him to discover the cancer in time and who assisted him in the situation.
17.
Toto Cutugno died from prostate cancer at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, on 22 August 2023, aged 80.