Rita Pavone rose to fame in the 1960s, and her encounter with Elvis changed her life forever.

“She’s like a cross between The Bea­t­les and Bren­da Lee,” one fan said. Nonethe­less, Rita Pavone may be unfa­mil­iar to Amer­i­can audi­ences.

The Ital­ian singer rose to fame in her home­land in the 1960s before ven­tur­ing to the Unit­ed States, where she appeared on The Ed Sul­li­van Show and scored a string of hits. She was also giv­en a signed paint­ing by Elvis Pres­ley and per­formed with Diana Ross and Paul Anka.

Nonethe­less, despite being a leg­end in her native Italy, Pavone nev­er achieved cult sta­tus in the Unit­ed States. So, how did she become a celebri­ty in the first place, and what does she do now?

Here’s every­thing you need to know about Rita Pavone, includ­ing the incred­i­ble sto­ry about her meet­ing with Elvis.

Rita Pavone was born on August 23, 1945, in Turin, Italy. Her father, Gio­van­ni Pavoni, worked at the Fiat fac­to­ry in the Ital­ian city, while her moth­er, Maria, raised Rita and her three broth­ers, Perio, Car­lo, and Cic­co.

Rita Pavone is a famous Ital­ian singer.

Pavone was always meant to be a per­former. She began singing at var­i­ous stu­dent par­ties and then in dif­fer­ent Turin bars.

But, in 1962, as pop music became more pop­u­lar world­wide, thanks part­ly to Elvis Pres­ley – with whom Pavone became friends – and The Bea­t­les, her life changed for­ev­er.

The first “Ral­ly of the Unknown” – a tal­ent com­pe­ti­tion – was to be held in the Aric­cia neigh­bor­hood of Rome, Italy’s cap­i­tal. Over 20,000 aspir­ing artists would par­tic­i­pate, though nei­ther Pavone nor her moth­er was sure music was the way for­ward at the time.

“It was the last option. I was on the verge of aban­don­ing every­thing. I had been singing since I was nine, but I had yet to break through and achieve more than local noto­ri­ety.”

“My moth­er advised me to put my dreams of glo­ry on hold,” Pavone explained.

Rita’s father, on the oth­er hand, stood by her the entire time. In secret, he wrote Ted­dy Reno, the tal­ent competition’s orga­niz­er, a let­ter explain­ing why his daugh­ter should be cho­sen. It worked, and the young, aspir­ing singer was giv­en a chance.

“I went think­ing it was my last chance. If I had missed out on this oppor­tu­ni­ty, I would have returned to Turin and, on my mother’s advice, prob­a­bly mar­ried,” Rita explained.

You can prob­a­bly guess what fol­lowed. Rita won the com­pe­ti­tion and became an overnight sen­sa­tion. Her first album, “La Par­ti­ta di Pal­lone” (“The Ball Game”), was record­ed in a mat­ter of weeks, with Rita per­form­ing live as well as on Ital­ian tele­vi­sion shows.

“You don’t have to dress like a woman to be a woman.”

“I still won­der [what the secret to my suc­cess was] to this day, and I can’t explain it. I was able to enter inter­na­tion­al hit parades with songs trans­lat­ed into for­eign lan­guages or made specif­i­cal­ly for that mar­ket wher­ev­er I went, from Brazil to Eng­land, from France to Ger­many,” Rita explained.

“I was the first to notice all of this inter­est in me. Per­haps I had a unique voice, a lit­tle high-pitched, cut­ting, but deeply per­son­al.”

“I think this strong per­son­al­i­ty was my trump card,” she added. “Being unique means not going unno­ticed. Today, how­ev­er, there is a wide­spread ten­den­cy to imi­tate oth­ers, result­ing in many pho­to­copied prod­ucts.”

“In my case, I also had a face that was halfway between a girl and a boy, with red hair and freck­les.”

Rita’s appear­ance and appear­ance would lat­er become a cen­tral talk­ing point when she entered the world of tele­vi­sion. She appeared to be a “tomboy,” a term for girls or young women with mas­cu­line char­ac­ter­is­tics.

“You don’t have to dress like a woman to be a woman,” Pavone once said.

Pavone, 19, rose to fame quick­ly after win­ning the tal­ent show and becom­ing a major star in Italy. She sold hun­dreds of thou­sands of albums in Italy and was invit­ed to audi­tion for RCA Records in the Unit­ed States. Rita was thought to be the next big thing.

She released an album and went on a pro­mo­tion­al tour across the Unit­ed States, where she per­formed on the leg­endary Ed Sul­li­van Show.

The unfor­get­table encounter with Elvis Pres­ley

She also had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet some of the great­est singers of all time. Rita shared the stage with Diana Ross and The Supremes, Ella Fitzger­ald, and Tom Jones, among oth­ers.

She also appeared on the Ed Sul­li­van Show and in per­for­mances at New York’s leg­endary Carnegie Hall.

How­ev­er, the most impor­tant and vis­i­ble meet­ing did not occur on any stage. Instead, it was in a Nashville record­ing stu­dio that Rita Pavone met one of her biggest idols and arguably the biggest star of all time: Elvis Pres­ley.

With his music, the King of Rock gave the entire world some­thing new. He was undoubt­ed­ly one of the most tal­ent­ed and charis­mat­ic enter­tain­ers we’ve ever seen.

Elvis Pres­ley, in addi­tion to being a major music star with songs like Jail­house Rock, In The Ghet­to, Hound Dog, and Love Me Ten­der, appeared in many films that helped pro­pel his career to new heights. Among these were clas­sics such as King Cre­ole (1958), Viva Las Vegas (1964), and The Trou­ble with Girls (1969).

Trag­i­cal­ly, Elvis died in August of 1977, leav­ing the world to mourn a true enter­tain­ment phe­nom.

Grace­land, Elvis Presley’s estate out­side of Mem­phis, Ten­nessee, became one of the most famous places in the world after the musi­cian pur­chased it for $102,500 in 1959.

Accord­ing to the muse­um, Elvis moved into Grace­land on June 26, 1957, and remained there until his trag­ic death on August 16, 1977.

Only a few years lat­er, in 1982, his ex-wife Priscil­la, along with two execu­tors, con­vert­ed it into a muse­um to pre­serve the estate and Elvis’ lega­cy.

“I start­ed whin­ing like a child.”
Grace­land has 23 rooms and is 17,552 square feet in size. Today, it is one of the most pop­u­lar tourist des­ti­na­tions in the Unit­ed States, attract­ing approx­i­mate­ly 600,000 vis­i­tors annu­al­ly.

Accord­ing to reports, it is the sec­ond most vis­it­ed house in the Unit­ed States, trail­ing only the White House. More than 22 mil­lion peo­ple have vis­it­ed the muse­um since its incep­tion in 1982.

The estate is said to cost the Pres­ley fam­i­ly around $500,000 per year to main­tain.

Rita Pavone was in “Music City” record­ing with her pro­duc­er, Chet Atkins, when they met. Bren­da Lee, her “muse,” was talk­ing about Elvis when the Ital­ian, who didn’t under­stand Eng­lish at the time, over­heard her. Rita, on the oth­er hand, had no idea why.

Elvis was sched­uled to vis­it the same record­ing stu­dio. Pavone got goose­bumps when she found out through her inter­preter.

“There was a chill in the air because I want­ed to meet him. So I went to Chet Atkins and asked him for a big favor: let me know when he was at one point,” Rita recalled.

“I saw a crowd of peo­ple arm­ing them­selves, they seemed to be prepar­ing the land­ing in Nor­mandy, he didn’t want to be dis­turbed,” they said.

“So I start­ed whin­ing like a child, say­ing that it was impos­si­ble to waste such an oppor­tu­ni­ty, and I con­vinced them, but they made a lot of sug­ges­tions.”

“I wait­ed until mid­night in the RCA stu­dios until they entered: first, his lawyer, sec­re­tary, sound engi­neer, and all his staff,” Rita Pavone added.

“Then there was him. He wore yel­low Ray-Bans that I had nev­er seen before, and his side­burns were stun­ning. He came in and greet­ed us before approach­ing me.”

“I asked him if I could have a pho­to of him, and he was very accom­mo­dat­ing, telling me that I could have even more. So he called his sec­re­tary, who hand­ed me a can­vas with the words ‘Best wish­es to Rita,’ before kiss­ing me good­bye and leav­ing.”

Elvis revealed to Rita that he knew her.
Rita Pavone holds a very spe­cial place in her heart for the can­vas, and meet­ing Elvis was, of course, incred­i­ble.

“I have it right here! My son, who is very real­is­tic and prag­mat­ic, has stat­ed that he will sell it when I die! I was blown away by a man of that stature and pop­u­lar­i­ty who was so down to earth,” she said.

Mil­lions of fans around the world wished to meet Elvis him­self. Rita’s wish was grant­ed, but if Elvis’ man­ag­er had his way, she would nev­er have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty.

Elvis’ man­ag­er report­ed­ly did not want Elvis to meet Rita at all. When they final­ly met, Elvis said some­thing incred­i­ble.

“His man­ag­er, Colonel Park­er, did not want me to meet her. But as he exit­ed the stu­dio, he noticed me and said, ‘But I know you!’ You went to see Ed Sul­li­van.’ Elvis was the one who rec­og­nized me. “I asked him for a pho­to, but he gave me one of his paint­ings instead,” Pavore recalled.

The Ital­ian singer’s life couldn’t have gone any bet­ter. In 1966, three of her songs, Date­mi un Martel­lo, Viva La Pap­pa Col Pomodoro, and Cuore chart­ed in the Unit­ed King­dom. Sev­er­al more hits fol­lowed, all of which chart­ed in coun­tries such as Brazil and Ger­many.

How­ev­er, as pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed, there was an issue with break­ing into the Unit­ed States. At the time, “Beat­le­ma­nia” was sweep­ing the coun­try, mak­ing it exceed­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to emerge as the next big thing.

Rita Pavone’s con­tentious mar­riage

Rita nev­er achieved great suc­cess in the Unit­ed States, and after five years, she decid­ed to return to Italy. There, she rose to promi­nence as a tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ty. The singer made her tele­vi­sion debut in the 1965 series Il Gior­nali­no di Gian Bur­ras­ca and appeared in numer­ous series and films.

Rita found the love of her life after return­ing to Italy. Remem­ber Ted­dy Reno, who first accept­ed her into the tal­ent show all those years ago? He had become her man­ag­er, and their love had blos­somed over the years. Final­ly, in 1968, the cou­ple mar­ried, even though their union was high­ly con­tentious among friends and fam­i­ly.

Ted­dy was near­ly 20 years Rita’s senior. They’d been togeth­er since the ear­ly 1960s, but the age gap was scan­dalous even at the time. When Rita returned to Italy after meet­ing Elvis, her father was upset that she and Ted­dy were plan­ning to mar­ry.

Pavone’s father was adamant­ly opposed, even threat­en­ing to sab­o­tage the wed­ding in any way he could. How­ev­er, as time passed, he real­ized he had made a mis­take by doubt­ing his daugh­ter.

“He came to our house in Switzer­land one day and admit­ted he’d made a mis­take. “Dad did every­thing; he didn’t want me to mar­ry, but then he real­ized every­one has to make their own choic­es,” Rita recalled.

Today’s Rita Pavone

Pavone’s career last­ed decades. She announced her retire­ment from the stage in the mid-2000s. She returned sev­en years lat­er and com­pet­ed in the Ital­ian ver­sion of Danc­ing with the Stars in 2016. She will per­form at the leg­endary San­re­mo Fes­ti­val in 2020, as well as in a Christ­mas spe­cial the fol­low­ing year. She cur­rent­ly resides in Tici­no, Switzer­land, with her hus­band, Ted­dy.

Rita Pavone’s career has been tru­ly mag­nif­i­cent, and we are grate­ful that she had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet and hang out with Elvis Pres­ley.