Johnny Cigarini (27 page)

In 1998, I was home in Wiltshire for the summer. I read an article in the
Sunday Times
colour magazine about a family who all had compulsive tics. They had all started twitching at around seven years old. I remember thinking,
That's me!
It turned out they had something called Tourette's syndrome. I had heard of that, but I thought it only applied to people who shouted profanities in the street.

A short while later, I was back in LA. I had a heart scan and the doctor who was checking my computer imaging had a very bad head tic. I told him I had the same thing and mentioned the magazine article. I asked him if he knew it was called Tourette's syndrome. He said he knew, and that the world's leading authority was nearby. I went to see this so-called ‘leading authority', Dr Comings, at the City of Hope Hospital at Duarte, a few miles away. First he tried me on various medicines and patches, none of which had any effect beyond making me feel drowsy. Eventually he tried me on a tiny pill called Orap, and this miracle drug has changed my life. I immediately stopped twitching – although even just writing or talking about it, I feel I could get back into it. Thanks to Orap, I don't. I am like an evangelist for the thing these days. If I see someone twitching in the street, I stop him and tell him about it.

I have emailed two Tourette's associations to tell them about Orap, but didn't get a reply from either of them. Weird.

Faced with the certainty of internment, my family packed up and moved to Rome. It was there where my mother took supplies from the Allies, the Americans, and because of it, I survived. Maybe I wouldn't have been born if Giuseppe had lived. Life: what a strange and incredible thing, and I don't try to make sense of it. There are still things I don't know, even after writing this book, like why my mother really did leave my father, but I think it's okay not to have all the answers. I just try to enjoy it and I encourage you to do the same, 'cause it'll go pretty fast. I returned to Italy to live, and live I do.

*

My life is completely different now, and I like it that way. I live a quiet life in beautiful, peaceful places. I don't like cities and traffic anymore, so consequently I don't often see all of the trendy people and celebrities in London and LA; instead my friends are normal people, like me. I'm in a different phase of my life, and I think when you are retired and in your seventies, good friends and good wine are the keys to a happy time.

I spend the summers in Tuscany, on the Umbrian border, in an 1840s farmhouse. I bought it for £20,000 for my sister Luisa in 1984, and I never thought for one second that I would one day live in it myself – but something happened and, like I've mentioned, a journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. The house was a favour that came back around to repay me. Luisa had been destitute. She was living in a squat in the Umbrian hills, with someone I presumed was a junkie. He wore shorts, which showed open sores all over his legs. I don't think Luisa took heroin; wine and pot were her things. “Why are you living with this guy?” I asked. The story is often the same: “I had nowhere else to go.” That upset me tremendously and I had been fortunate with money, so I told her I'd buy her a house if she didn't live with him. She agreed and I sent her a million lire every month, for twenty years. It sounds impressive, but that was only £500 a month – almost enough for her to live off, excluding her drinks bill. I would visit Luisa regularly because I was always filming in Italy and she would take me to both bars in the village of San Leo Bastia, where she always had a huge tab of another £500 in each. I would, of course, pay them off. Luisa was very socialistic in ideology; she thought rich people's money belonged to the poor, or more precisely, that my money was hers. Her favourite expression was, “Don't worry, my brother is rich. He will pay.” And that's two of the reasons they now like me in the village. They know that I looked after my family and that's important to the Italians, but they also know that I honoured her debts, and they respect me for that too.

Things were getting worse and Luisa was living with a woman, Stefania, who was supposed to be looking after her, driving her around, doing her errands. Instead, Stefania would go to the bank with Luisa each month and snatch the money from my sister's hand. I had to get Luisa away from her, so I bought her a small house in the village, hoping she could live alone. Unfortunately, it was over the road from one of the bars, and she would get hopelessly drunk and lie comatose in the middle of the road. She was soiling herself and leaving pans on the stove in the house. I was in LA so I suggested putting her in a home, but things like that don't really exist in Italy. In Italy, old people live with the family. Andrew and Marianne Newell, friends of Luisa, tried to help and put her in a home of sorts, but it was more like a loony bin and she was molested. When that news came in, it seemed to open old wounds and I reached out to my other sisters for help, because it was so difficult for me to do anything from LA. Christina went to live with her in the little house in the village. The thief Stefania refused to leave, and I had to sue her to get her out. By this time, Luisa kept having strokes and could no longer talk. Eventually she got too bad and came to Cornwall, where she was looked after by Christina and the social services. She died about five years ago. By then I was retired, so moved to Italy.

*

My house is actually in Tuscany, but more often than not I call it Umbria. I am the second house in Tuscany, one mile from the border with Umbria. I rarely go into Tuscany. If I do, it's for the thirty-minute winding drive over the mountain to Cortona, which is a lovely town. I think of Luisa when I'm there, too much sometimes, but I guess that's normal. Could I have done more to help? It's hard to know, I suppose. Questions like this come to you in old age. It's normal they tell me, and not to dwell on it too much. It – the past – is something I think a lot of these days, here in Italy.

Instead, I head for the local village, San Leo Bastia, which is five minutes away in Umbria. As Cecilia from my local bar says, I sleep in Tuscany, but I live in Umbria. I spend more time in Città di Castello and Umbertide, two mediaeval towns in Umbria, than I do in Tuscany. Since the great American success of Frances Mayes' book, and subsequent film
Under the Tuscan Sun
, Cortona has become crowded with American tourists. I don't blame them coming here; it is a beautiful city, but it's now a bit too touristy for my tastes – now that I'm officially retired.

One of the reasons I like Italy so much is the circle of friends that I have found. The life I have is like a commercial for an Italian pasta sauce. We have lunches on long tables of eight to fifteen, sometimes twenty-five in the summer. We meet three times a week, eat two courses and all the wine you can drink for €20 a head – €10 if it's pizza.

I am not embarrassed that many of my friends here are expats, even if it is a bit of a cliché, but we live a different lifestyle to the locals; we're Brits, after all. The Italians work mostly in agriculture or in logging, and their lives don't fit with ours. I suppose it's always the case when communities try to integrate in foreign countries; they usually always try really hard, but regroup in the end. Umbria is covered in trees and is known as the Green Heart of Italy, not only for its colour but its oxygen too. The villagers either cut down the trees or transport them to the lumber merchants, or chop them into firewood. They live in big family houses with four generations living under the same roof. The old people often make it past 100, so who says wine and pasta aren't good for the heart? Their lifestyle is quite commendable to me – it is slower, more focused on the important things. I like that, and in the modern hectic world of mobile phones, computers, and high stress, we can learn from them.

I hesitate to say one friend is my best, as I love them all. But I am closest to Jim and Jill Powrie. They live in Umbria, but have their holiday home in Croatia, in an unspoilt fishing village called Supetar on the island of Brac, just off Split. I spent a month there last summer. It, too, is like going back in time, like San Tropez must have been before Brigitte Bardot discovered it: a harbour full of traditional fishing boats, and no luxury motor yachts.

David Monico and Neil Brown are in a civil partnership, having been together for forty years. David was an actor and Neil worked at the BBC. We have lunch on Saturdays, at Fez in Città di Castello. Sometimes it's just the three of us, or with Ian McDonald, but in the summer it tends to get a bit more crowded. I'm not homophobic, but I do feel a bit outnumbered sometimes! Robbie Duff-Scott is a wonderful painter and gets up at 5am to a rising sun to begin his art. It certainly is a quieter life, but occasionally there is a drama. Robbie's mother Barbara also lives in Umbertide, with her partner Lenny. Lenny recently got arrested at his home and was taken to the post office, which had been evacuated of its entire staff and cordoned off by police holding submachine guns. Inside, there were forensic experts in white protective suits, tentatively poking at a package addressed to Lenny. It had burst open and a suspicious yellow powder was all over the post office. Lenny confirmed the package was his, and that it contained Bird's custard powder!

Dick Pountain and Marion Hills summer here. Dick worked at
Oz
magazine, with Felix Dennis, Richard Neville and Jim Anderson – the editors. They were put on trial for obscenity after publishing an edition created by schoolchildren. They were found guilty and given long jail sentences, but were acquitted on appeal. There was popular support for them, led by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Tim and Anna Maltby pick olives and bottle the oil, and host wonderful lunches; Rob and Amanda House have a fabulous home and also love entertaining; and Ken Stott and his artist girlfriend Nina Gehl live here too, when he isn't filming
The Hobbit
or appearing on the West End stage. Ian McDonald is a summer visitor. He is known as the Chairman, by virtue of being the Chairman of the Umbria Lunch Club. He had his moment in the spotlight during the Falklands War, when he was the Ministry of Defence spokesman on television.

One swell couple are John Fraser and his long-time companion Rod Pienaar. John was a fine actor and had many starring roles, playing the king alongside Charlton Heston in
El Cid
, Lord Alfred Douglas in
The Trials of Oscar Wilde
, and Colin in Roman Polanski's
Repulsion
. However, his big passion was for Shakespeare, and John ran a touring company, which toured Africa amongst many other places. He is still a fine looking man in his eighties and a good author, too.

David and Jenny Nichols are overrun with seven dogs and cats, and sometimes a goose. Jenny is another great cook and is hostess for residential cooking holidays. David is a film producer; his last two big productions have been
The Tourist
and
To Rome with Love
. I also have to thank him for telling me I should write my autobiography. A month later and it's almost finished, David!

The only people I know in Cortona deserve a mention, not only because they are nice people, but mostly to keep in the spirit of the subtitle of the book. My friend Lisabette Brinkman is the daughter of Jeanne Crain, the former Hollywood star. I met Lisabette through a Baja connection. During the peak of her fame in the late 1940s, when only Betty Grable bettered Jeanne Crain's fan mail, she was nicknamed ‘Hollywood's Number One Party Girl', and would attend over 200 parties a year. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starring role in the 1949 film
Pinky
.

There are many other friends, as expat crowds all seem to know each other, and there is no one I don't like. We all have a great time and I am grateful to them all for enriching my wonderful Italian world. In addition to all my expat mates here, there are all the lovely Italians from my local village, San Leo Bastia. They are the best people in the world: friendly, kind and generous, in spite of the fact I find it difficult to understand what they are saying. Many of them, like my builder Luciano and Camilla Muffi, and the Bucci and Pierini families, invite me to dinner or Sunday lunch, where huge tables are laid for sometimes three or four generations of family, and with tons of food. One amazing thing about the villagers is how much they loved my sister Luisa, despite what happened.

In June 2014 the village Pro Loco organised my 70th birthday celebrations. I had visitors from all over the world, including my neighbours from Baja, Roberta Booth, Percy and Estela Hendler, and Dennis and Gun Bush, and also friends from LA and England, who all came to Italy for a week of festivities. Each day we took a bus to the beautiful medieval towns of Umbertide, Città di Castello, and Cortona, and had sumptuous lunches with twenty friends. On the night of my party, the
Festa di Johnny
, there was an open invitation to all the villagers and all my expat friends. Eighteen unpaid volunteers cooked a four-course sit-down dinner for five hundred people. Three or four times during the dinner, the local youngsters, whom I have nicknamed the Vitelloni (young bulls) after the great Fellini film of that name, chanted “Jo-NNY! Jo-NNY! Jo-NNY! Jo-NNY! ” The tidal wave came over every few minutes. I felt like I had scored the winning goal in a World Cup Final. We then had two bands; Pamela and Martina, two beautiful young accordionists that the older folk enjoyed dancing to, and the GTOs, a great local band led by Bryan Ferry look-a-like Stefano Bucci, which got the youngsters bouncing up and down. In between, we had an English DJ Kenny Hague. The Pro Loco presented me with a plaque making me an Honorary Citizen of San Leo Bastia, and when I made a short speech in Italian telling them I felt great love from them I burst into tears. It was without any doubt the best night of my life, and I went to bed at 3am. However, I was so over-excited I could not sleep for hours. The next day Sunday 8th June, (my actual birthday) I felt dizzy and faint, and badly out of breath when walking up the stairs. A local friend who is a cardiologist took my blood pressure and it was sky-high. She recommended I went to the accident and emergency room, so my Italian nephews from Rome took me to Città di Castello hospital. After electro-cardiograms, x-rays, and blood tests all day, I was released to go home at 8pm, feeling much better. I guess the excitement of the night before had all been too much for a seventy-year old. I had had such a great party it didn't really bother me to spend my 70th birthday in the hospital. I was just sorry to miss a nice birthday lunch with my family and friends, but they had it without me.

The Pierini are a typical San Leo family. Nine siblings all in their sixties and seventies: five women and four men. One of them, Giobbe, is the village plumber with his son Diego, Rosato cuts down the trees, his handsome son Francesco cuts them into logs, and another brother Menco drives the lumber truck. I am particularly friendly with Menco and his three sons Emanuele, Enrico and the younger one Lorenzo, who is at Rome University. The family had a terrible tragedy. Their mother Alba suddenly collapsed and died; she was in her early fifties. She was the classically strong Italian woman who ran the household of four men. It was touching watching the men make do without her, but they coped fine. They often invite me to Sunday lunch and they cook up a terrific meal, but it's still sad not having Alba, the wife and mother, there. It made me think of my mother who died young – but like I've mentioned, it can't all be happy times, can it?