Singer songwriter Toto Cutugno, best known for his worldwide 1983 hit song, "L'Italiano", died at the age of 80 on Tuesday, his manager Danilo Mancuso told ANSA.
Cutugno, whose birth name was Salvatore, died in Milan's San Raffaele Hospital "after a long illness, which had become more serious in the last few months", said Mancuso.
Born in Tuscany to a Sicilian father, Cutugno also won the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Insieme: 1992".
He won the Sanremo Song Festival only once, with "Solo noi" in 1980, but took part 15 times.
In 2019 a group of Ukrainian musicians tried to stop him performing in Kyiv saying he was a Russian sympathiser like fellow veteran southern Italian star Al Bano.
Source: Ansa News Agency (ANA)