Italy’s leader demands safe roads; bridge toll rises to 43
NEW YORK — When I got the chance to interview Aretha Franklin for the first time in 2001, I was already a bundle of nerves: Even though it was just over the phone, I’d be talking to THE Queen of Soul! You could get no closer to rock ‘n’ roll royalty than the Queen herself.
So my trepidation was magnified when a colleague told me not to expect much: Franklin was famously guarded and known for giving short, to-the-point answers and little in the way of introspection.
Sure enough, when we spoke on the topic at hand — a VH1 Divas concert honoring her music — Franklin didn’t offer much at first. But then, I remembered that she was a huge “The Young and the Restless” fan, and in particular, of Victor Newman, as was I. So we chatted about that. And before long, she opened up a bit more, and while I didn’t get any big scoops that day, I got a bit of her flair, her personality and her regalness — when I asked her if she thought she was the ultimate diva, she retorted, “What do YOU think?”
Over the years, we’d have many more conversations. Sometimes, I’d get a note from her publicist, Gwendolyn Quinn, who’d let me know that Franklin would like to talk to me; she sometimes rang me on her own. She called me Ms. Moody, and I of course called her Ms. Franklin (though sometimes, just “Aretha” would pop out, revealing my lack of home training).
In some ways, our conversations weren’t particularly deep: She didn’t expound on the kind of life experiences that allowed her to convey emotion on a track like no other; we didn’t delve into the magic behind classics like “Ain’t No Way” or “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.”
We spoke when she was working on new music, or about an upcoming performance (like when she sang for the Pope in 2015) or even her fitness plan and weight loss. And her love of tennis (she was a frequent attendee at the U.S. Open).
But at times, our talks were revealing. In one 2007 interview, she vented her frustration that while she was among the greatest stars that popular music had ever produced, that never transferred to the big screen, despite small roles in movies like “The Blues Brothers.” She blamed it on racism.
“I don’t understand why it’s so hard for longtime artists in the music industry who have numerous awards and citations and things like that to even get a pittance of an offer from Hollywood. It just doesn’t happen. What is the problem?”
We also talked about her health. She had been very sick a few years ago, to the point where her friend the Rev. Jesse Jackson asked the public to pray for her; when she got better, I was one of the first she discussed her recovery with.
“My treatments are going very well. My last CAT scan, my doctor at the CAT scan and everyone who sees this says that this is miraculous, absolutely miraculous,” she told me. However, when I pressed as to what her sickness actually was, she said: “I’m not one to go into my personal health things.” (It was only after her death that it was revealed she died of pancreatic cancer).
She gave me the first news of her engagement, to old friend Willie Wilkerson, in 2012. In an interview, she joyously talked about the wedding gowns (Donna Karan and Vera Wang were among the possibilities). She also let this nugget drop: She was once involved in an “intimate” affair with a late-night TV host whom she wouldn’t name.
My invite to that wedding never came — she announced the engagement was off soon after.
But I did get an invite to one of her celebrated birthday bashes in New York, at a swanky hotel overlooking Central Park. Among the celebrities who would turn out over the years were Denzel Washington, Tony Bennett, Gayle King and Bette Midler; Franklin held court at a table, usually sitting next to music mogul Clive Davis, as people came by to give her propers, as she would say.
GENOA, Italy — Italy’s president demanded guarantees Saturday that all the nation’s roads are safe following the Genoa highway bridge collapse, after he hugged and comforted mourners at a state funeral in the grieving port city.
President Sergio Mattarella spoke quietly to victims’ families before the ceremony began on Genoa’s fairgrounds. Usually reserved in demeanor, Mattarella was embraced tightly for a long moment by one distraught woman.
He then took his place with other Italian leaders, including Premier Giuseppe Conte and the transportation minister, in the packed yet cavernous hall.
Afterward, Mattarella called the funeral, which took place on a day of national mourning, “a moment of grief, shared grief, by all of Italy.”
One mourner, a local man who would only give his first name, Alessandro, held a placard that read: “In Italy, we prefer ribboncuttings to maintenance” — referring to the country’s dilapidated infrastructure.
“These are mistakes that keep on repeating. And now, for the umpteenth time, angels have flown into heaven and paid for the mistakes of other human beings,” Alessandro said.
As the city honored its dead, the toll from Tuesday’s bridge collapse rose unofficially Saturday to 43 with the discovery of four more bodies in the rubble and the death in the hospital of the most severely injured survivor.
Firefighter Stefano Zanut told Sky TG24 TV they had extracted from tons of broken concrete the crushed car that an Italian couple on vacation with their 9-year-old daughter had been traveling in.
Zanut said the last body pulled out of the wreckage was that of a young Italian man, an employee of Genoa’s trash company, who was working under the bridge when it collapsed. The man’s mother had refused to leave a tent set up a few hundred yards away from the rubble until his body was found.
RAI state radio said authorities now believe there are no more missing in the tragedy.
Later, San Martino Hospital said a Romanian truck driver who had suffered severe cranial and chest injuries in the bridge collapse died Saturday evening.
The families of 19 victims their loved ones’ coffins brought to the hall for the funeral Mass led by Genoa’s archbishop, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, who said the tragedy “gashed the heart of Genoa.”
“The initial disbelief and then the growing dimension of the catastrophe, the general bewilderment, the tumult of emotions, the pressing “Whys?” have touched us yet again and in a brutal way showed the inexorable fragility of the human condition,” he said.
Among the coffins were those of two young Albanian Muslim men who lived and worked in Italy. Their remains were blessed at the end of the Catholic service by a Genoa imam, who drew applause when he prayed for God to “protect Italy and all Italians.”
Players and managers from the city’s two major league soccer teams, Genoa and Sampdoria, also attended after their weekend matches were postponed out of respect for the dead.
At other bridge funerals on Friday, angry mourners blamed authorities of negligence and incompetence for failing to keep the bridge safe.
During the state funeral, applause rang out and many fought back tears Saturday as a prelate read out the first names of some 30 victims who have been identified. The mourners also applauded Italian firefighters, police and volunteers for the civil protection department as they arrived.