Lory Del Santo

Lory Del Santo was born in Povegliano Veronese, near Verona, into an indigent family. She was the eldest daughter of the then 22-year-old Antonio Dal Santo and his wife Clorinda. Due to low temperatures and other factors, Del Santo was born in a stable. When she was three, her father died in a car accident. She grew up with her mother and her sister, who is three years her junior. They lived in the countryside and then moved to Verona.

Del Santo started her TV career at sixteen as a valletta in the 1975 edition of Festivalbar,[1] the first edition that took place at the Verona Arena, which became the permanent venue for the final evening of the music festival and for the most important live concerts.[2] After graduating from high school she left Verona for Rome and Milan alone, without her mother's consent, to attempt a career in film and fashion. She worked as a model, fashion photographer, and entrepreneur and studied acting. In the late 1970s she had her first film roles and took part in 20 films over six years, some of which sexy comedy films and was directed, among others, by Dino Risi, Adriano Celentano, Massimo Troisi.

In 1980 she entered the Miss Universe competition.[3] In the early-1980s Del Santo became popular thanks to her participation in successful TV shows such as Renzo Arbore's Tagli, ritagli e frattaglie (1981) and Antonio Ricci's Drive In (1983-1988).[1] In the second half of the 1980s, she set aside her career in the entertainment industry to devote herself to her private life. However, in 1989 and 1990 she went on tour as the protagonist for a theatrical show alongside Walter Chiari. In the Autumn of 1991 she was requested for another theatre tour, but gave up for personal reasons.

Del Santo was a focus of gossip columns in UK mainly for her relationship with Eric Clapton (who dedicated the song "Lady of Verona" to her)[4] and for the death of their son, Conor Loren. While he was still married to Pattie Boyd, Clapton embarked on a relationship with the twenty-seven year old Del Santo and fathered Conor, who was born on 21 August 1986. Conor died on 20 March 1991, at the age of four and a half, when he fell out of an open window on the 53rd floor of a Manhattan apartment building, the Galleria. The window, which was about 4 ft by 6 ft tall, had been opened by a building cleaner. The tragedy took place in the middle of an about 20-day stay in New York by Lory and Conor, who was looked after also by a babysitter.[5] The death of their son was the inspiration for Clapton's songs, "Tears in Heaven", "Circus" and "My Father's Eyes".

After a long absence, she returned to television in 2005 by participating in the third season of L'isola dei famosi. During this show, she received such high approval from the public that it aroused the interest of even the hardest detractors of this television genre; in the last episode she triumphed with 75% of the votes, officially marking her return to TV. In the following years she took part in others Italian reality shows, TV shows, and radio broadcasts. In 2006 a publishing house asked her to write an autobiography, but she doesn't appreciate biographies and autobiographies, so she found a 'compromise' and wrote a particular book that she calls an "autobiography of my thoughts" or a very long preface, with the title Piacere è una sfida; neither Eric Clapton nor their son, being very personal matters, are mentioned in it.[6] During her entire career, she has chosen never to be accompanied by an agent or other specific figures, preferring total self-determination.

The Italian singer Zucchero wrote in his autobiography about how Lory Del Santo had the idea to introduce him to Clapton, inviting the Italian singer for dinner with the couple. From this meeting, an artistic collaboration and a long friendship between the two musicians was born.[7]

In her book, Del Santo states that she had an affair with George Harrison in December 1991 in Hiroshima, shortly after the death of her (and Clapton's) son. She has two other children, Devin and Loren, whom she raised alone as a single mother.[6] Since the first moments of notoriety in 1981, she has always declared herself against the bond of marriage, and she has never married.[8]

Her son, Loren Del Santo, took his own life in 2018 at just 19 years old, after having long suffered from a psychiatric illness called anhedonia, a disease that prevents those affected from experiencing pleasure, feelings or emotions of any kind. For years he had lived in the United States, in Miami, where he studied at Miami Beach High School. Born in 1999, Loren was the youngest of the showgirl’s children.[9]

• Lory Del Santo at IMDb