Italy: Toto Cutugno dies at age 80!

The legend of the Italian music and winner of Eurovision Song Contest 1990, Toto Cutugno, died at aged 80, in a hospital in Milan.

Famed Italian singer Toto Cutugno, best known for his worldwide 1983 hit song, “L’Italiano”, died at the age of 80 on Tuesday

Having just turned 80 in July, the singer-songwriter died at around 4pm at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, where he was hospitalised.

His manager Danilo Mancuso said that “after a long illness, the singer’s health deteriorated in recent months.”

Cutugno, whose birth name was Salvatore, gained worldwide popularity in 1983 when he took his song “L’Italiano”, to the Sanremo festival.

Originally intended for Adriano Celentano, who declined to sing it, L’italiano‘s recapitulation of some of Italy’s most popular social traits, made the song very popular with Italian immigrants, especially in Australia and South America.

Although the song finished only fifth in Sanremo, it went on to become Cutugno’s biggest international hit.

He also won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1990 with the song Insieme: 1992, a ballad which celebrated European political integration and the establishment of the European Union. This was the second Italian victory in the Eurovision Song Contest. He was one of the hosts at next year contest that was held in Rome.

Born in Tuscany to a Sicilian father, Cutugno won the Sanremo Festival in 1980 with is song Solo Noi.

L’Italiano made him one of the most popular Italian musicians in the world.

Our deepest condolences to all his friends and family.