An Appreciation
-— by Sandy Lieberson —-
It is 10 February 2012 and I am looking at photos and videos of Alfredo Cuomo who is in the midst of a sea of laughing young Indian Children at St Theresa school in Chennai. He has never looked happier or more content in the fifty years I have know him than he does among these children in India. Alfredo is not a visiting European in a distant land; he seems to be part of this group of children in an environment that he and Elena Cuomo have created. Yes, it is my dear friend Alfredo that I thought I knew so well but he has become another person. Not somebody who changed his profession or moved to another home, but someone who has changed his way of being and thinking. I marvel at what he has achieved and it makes me examine myself and think about what motivates and drives us in our lives. For Alfredo has left behind an enormously successful career in the world of cinema and television to devote himself to something far more challenging and rewarding. He found a way to use his success and fortune to help children who desperately needed him. Neither of them knew it when Alfredo and Elena made that momentous trip to explore India in 1999. What was the road that brought Alfredo and Elena to Chennai and the creation of the Cuomo Foundation?
I first met Alfredo in Roma, 1961. I had just arrived from Hollywood to begin working as an agent representing many of those great filmmakers and actors working in Italy. The Italian Cinema was exploding with some of the greatest films and filmmakers in the history of cinema: Fellini, De Sica, Risi, Sordi, Mastroianni, Gassman, Vitti, Loren, Visconti, Pasolini, Antonioni, Goddard, Leoni and Ava Gardner…and in the middle of this renaissance of post war Italian films and La Dolce Vita was Alfredo Cuomo.
Alfredo, born and educated in Rome, chose to study law but was destined never to practice it. After law school he applied and was offered the highly sought after Fulbright Scholarship to study at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin USA. Wisconsin, the ‘land of lakes’ and subzero winters was Alfredo’s home and place of study for the next year. Alfredo loved the freedom of the USA and at the end of the year armed with flawless English he returned to Rome and was offered a position at the U.S. Embassy working in the press department, where he made contact with the world of journalism. But it only took a few months before the legendary film producer, Dino De Laurentiis, hired Alfredo to put his journalistic contacts and knowledge of English to work in the Italian film industry.
Alfredo’s intelligence and charm was going to be put to good use in the marketing and selling of these great new Italian films to an international audience.
The first film Alfredo worked on was The Best of Enemies (I Due Nemici) starring Alberto Sordi and David Niven, in a hilarious comedy about the clash of British and Italian cultures in WW2. It was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and directed by the successful British filmmaker, Guy Hamilton. The Best of Enemies became one of the first post war international successes and turned out to be an auspicious debut of Alfredo Cuomo as whiz kid promoter of Italian Cinema. Alfredo, a handsome, dashing, energetic and brilliant young Italian whose destiny was to become part of the international film industry.
This was also the rise of the paparazzi phenomena…and Alfredo knew the paparazzi and they knew him. Alfredo’s growing knowledge of photographers and photography helped him discover the way of using both the paparazzi and the new gossip magazines such as Gente, Oggi, Chi, and Grazia to promote films, almost like a scene out of Fellini’s 8½.
In those early 60's in Roma we were out most nights, the Via Veneto for watching celebrities, Piazza del Popolo for talking, arguing, drinking coffee, sambuca and grappa until the early hours of the morning. Hanging out with Clint Eastwood, Jack Palance, Anita Ekberg, Alain Delon, Robert Aldrich… Alfredo had great energy and a real curiosity about the world of politics. It was the time of the ascendency of the Italian Communist Party, MSI fascists, and of course the onslaught of American Culture. Alfredo had an all-consuming passion for cinema, the Arts and all things new.
The first film Alfredo worked onThe Best of Enemies (I Due Nemici) starring Alberto Sordi and David Niven, became one of the first post war international successes and turned out to be an auspicious debut of Alfredo Cuomo as whiz kid promoter of Italian Cinema.
During this time Alfredo came to the realization that he wanted to share his success and wealth in some positive way. He felt that through education he might be able to make a contribution to society and children. He made several approaches to the Vatican but was unable to find a way to involve them. Alfredo did not want to just donate money to a charity but to create an initiative whereby he could deliver a project that would have education at it’s heart and benefit the children of the countries he had visited.
It was in 1999 that Alfredo and Elena travelled to India, a country they both loved. They arrived in Chennai, formerly known as Madras, located on the South coast near the Bay of Bengal in the state of Tamil Nadu. By coincidence Chennai is home to the thriving Tamil film industry made famous through the films of the great Sajajit Ray.Escaping the crowded and noisy town, they strolled along the beach past fishing villages. Alfredo, carrying three cameras, was followed by a growing group of children. Dressed in school uniform, the children led Elena and Alfredo to an area where, standing side by side was a Hindu Temple and a pink coloured Christian Church. Entering the church they discovered it was full of children sitting on the floor for their lessons. It was at this moment that the idea of fulfilling Alfredo’s desire to promote education for children would become a reality here in India.
The priest told them that the children needed a dormitory as they also lived at the school, sleeping on the floor.
PUPILS OF Alfredo Cuomo Higher Secondary School, Sendivakkam, INDIA
Alfredo contacted Father Thomas who was in charge of the school and began discussions about the possibility of building a dormitory where the students could live. Moving to a hotel Alfredo and Elena began developing their idea for separate dormitories for girls and boys within the compound of the church. Alfredo felt that putting some of the older members of the church into the dormitories would benefit the children in their development and studies. Under Alfredo’s supervision and with his sketches, plans for the buildings were drawn up. Alfredo and Elena stayed on to oversee the building and to make sure it fulfilled their expectations. In addition Alfredo created a programme of scholarships benefiting both the girls and boys for future University studies. Addressing the inequality of young girls position in Indian society was an important issue for them. Several years later many of the scholarship students went on to make their own contribution to helping the young. One in particular, Chitra who started at school when she was ten became an established engineer in a very successful computer software company and used her own money to set up a dental camp for young people.
Following completion of the dormitories, Alfredo and Elena proposed the creation of a separate school that would accommodate over one thousand Hindu and Christian students studying and living together. Alfredo would supervise the design of the building and with the condition that the Church could not sell the land for the next thirty years.
In 2001 the Cuomo Foundation was created to take control of all the projects. The overriding consideration was that the Foundation was not to act as a bank, but to create an organization with a heart and soul. The Foundation would create and supervise each project it undertook. Alfredo made the decision that the Foundation would be his full time work and he was never happier.
Alfredo was never without an idea for a new and exciting Cuomo Foundation project. During his travels Alfredo became interested in Buddhism and spent years studying their tradition and philosophy. It inspired him to publish Land Of Gold, which gave him the opportunity to use his photography to express his feelings for the Buddhists.
And this brings me back to the photos of Alfredo and Elena at the school in Chennai.
Modesty, sensitivity, a huge capacity for love and generosity.A man of culture with a respect for the traditional but fascination with the new.Someone who was able to inspire young people and set them on the road to a better life.
These are some of the qualities that I recognize in Alfredo.
His passing in 2009 was a tragedy for Elena, his family and friends and the thousands of children he helped. But Alfredo wasn’t one for self-pity. When he learned he was ill he talked and planned with Elena for her succession in running the Foundation after his death.
Those of us who knew Alfredo are better people for his friendship and in Elena and the Foundation Cuomo his spirit and beliefs continue to better the lives of future generations.
Alfredo Cuomo and Sandy Lieberson in Rome, 1970's
Sandy Lieberson - awarded honorary C.B.E. (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by Ed Vaizey, Minister of State at the Department for Culture in 2012.
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A Tribute by Marino de Medici
Alfredo Cuomo was addicted to his dreams and valiantly tried to make them a reality. His life was driven by curiosity, the unquenchable thirst to see new places and to try unbeaten paths. I know that it was more than an intellectual curiosity for new things, it was something more like a passion engendered by a keen eye and a restless attitude. I know all this because I was born five days after Alfredo and we spent years together as adolescents. We devoured the novels of Emilio Salgari, the creator of swashbuckling adventures in far away exotic places, from India to Malaysia, with a host of unforgettable heroic characters like Sandokan and the tigers of Mompracem. Alfredo’s destiny was to discover the very places that Salgari had described without ever leaving northern Italy. In those legendary seas and jungles Alfredo realized his dreams that now give shelter, hope and comfort to thousands of young and old on three continents as the beneficiaries of his generosity that endowed The Cuomo Foundation.
I remember Alfredo together with Salgari, as we both strived to break out of the confines of our neighborhood in Rome to meet the challenges of a new word. We both knew what we wanted after suffering the hardships of years of war and devastation in our country. We both talked of traveling in a world at peace with wide open eyes. Alfredo had a prepared mind as he embarked on a trek that would indeed take him around the world. We both won Fulbright scholarships to study in the United States.
While there, Alfredo traveled from his college in Wisconsin to California where he developed the knowledge and intuition that would pave his way to success in the tinsel world of film making and distribution. I became a foreign correspondent, based in Washington, and traveled the world covering coups in Latin America and the war in Vietnam.
Our paths diverged. Destiny has a strange way of bringing people together and then separating them, through no fault of theirs. It was in Alfredo’s DNA to rise to great heights by sheer determination and business talent. Yet it was his curiosity that drove him up to those heights. It focused his mind and channeled his creativity, not just into business but through the viewfinder of a camera. It was curiosity that nourished the ambition of his mind and the passion of his heart, and allowed him to look into the sparkling eyes of a child and the hollow face of an old man. His empathy captured people in need and brought smiles to their lips. Their dreams came true, just like those early wild dreams of the boy I knew in grade school.
- Marino de Medici, Journalist