Frankie Valli's Life Behind The Scenes Was More Tragic Than We Knew
When you picture Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons in your mind, you probably think of hit songs and unmistakable falsetto vocals. But how much do you really know about the legendary singer? Away from the stage, he has encountered a huge number of obstacles during his six-decades-long career, on top of dealing with some truly tragic losses in his personal life. It’s been quite the journey for Valli: let’s go through it step by step.
A man who loves to sing
Valli — born Francesco Castelluccio — has always been a man who loved to sing. In fact, as recently as 2016 he told British newspaper The Daily Telegraph that singing is still pretty much all he does! With great sincerity, he admitted, “I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs. I don’t play golf, I don’t play tennis, I don’t hike, I don’t ski. I like to sing. I’ve been doing it my whole life. What else am I going to do?”
A self-taught legend
In truth, Valli wasn’t born a musical prodigy: he had to work at it. As he told the newspaper, “No one starts out terrific. It’s like anything else, it takes a lot of practice.” His family couldn’t afford to send him to music school, but as he put it, “Who taught the first guy how to sing? Who taught the first artist how to paint… or the first dancer how to dance? Where did it come from? And so, I taught myself.”
Growing up in New Jersey
Valli had to overcome plenty of obstacles to his dream as a kid growing up in Newark, New Jersey. Poverty was ever-present: his family lived from paycheck to paycheck in the projects. In 2008 he reminisced to People magazine about boiling water on the stove simply to have a bath. And all while he watched the criminal element in the neighborhood make a better living than his mom and dad, who worked regular jobs.
Choosing the right path
“There were no opportunities to go to college, so you didn’t have many options,” remembered Valli. “You got a job on an assembly line, or you got Mobbed up.” Valli wound up taking neither of those paths, though he did have one small brush with the law as a youth when he was caught breaking and entering. He admitted, “It had a terrible effect on my parents. I loved them very much and didn’t want to hurt them.”
