Childhood Memories
I recognize her first by her long, blond hair, then by her voice. On a hot Roman afternoon that takes you by the throat, Lorella Cuccarini is sitting in the dehors of a bar without even sweating. She wears a white T-shirt, cobalt blue, soft pants, and flip-flops. Simple, simple. On August 10th, she will be 50 years old. In interviews they have started to ask her how she lives them with such a wide anticipation that I wonder if she now feels 51. “Childhood, for me, is Prenestino,” she answers, “the neighborhood in Rome where we moved when I was 4 years old. I remember our apartment on the fifth floor, the elementary school in front, my first love at kindergarten and, later, a boy I liked: we exchanged rings when I was, I think, seven years old. And then the image of my mother at home working.”
Passion for Dancing
What kind of work did she do? “She has always been a seamstress. I see her sewing in the evening after putting us to bed (Lorella has a sister, Luisa, 57 years old, and a brother, Roberto, three and a half years older, ed.) When did she start having a passion for dancing? “I’ve always had it. Mom told me that when I was three or four I lined up dolls in my bedroom and danced. A bit like my little daughter (Chiara, 15 years old like the twin Giorgio, the other two are Sara, 21, and Giovanni, 19, ed.) who now plays football and who started juggling when she was a child. I tried to imitate the choreographies I had seen on Saturday night on TV: the great variety shows of that era, Carra. At 9 I enrolled in the first dance course because they had opened a school nearby. At 11 I tried to enter the Dance Academy because I wanted to attend high school as an intern. But they didn’t take me.”
School Life
How was she at school? “Good. Studious, without exaggerating, always with good grades on the report card, calm, polite. I never gave any problems.” Only good memories of that period? “In general yes, although my father left home when I was 8, 9 years old. Despite being small I perceived a bit of tension, I realized that my parents were almost never in agreement about anything, that they were distant, and that my mother suffered from the lack of someone next to her. But she never lacked anything for me and my sister.”
