Leo Gullotta and Catania

Leo Gullotta, the award winning theatre actor and showman with more than 50 years experience of treading the boards is one of the most well known faces from Catania, the city with which he still has an unbreakable bond.

“Catania – he tells us when we interview him to ask him for a few tips for tourists and travellers – is where my soul is.  It has never left my city. I’ve never broken the ties with Catania”. His perfect diction is pleasantly interrupted by some words in the local Catania dialect, like when he answers the question about which part of Catania he is from and where he grew up: “I’m“from Futtino”(the Fort), in piazza Palestro where you can find Porta Ferdinandea, built to commemorate the marriage between Ferdinand I and Maria Carolina of Hapsburg.  When I was little in the 50’s we had nothing but hope for the future.  We played in via Plebiscito and via Garibaldi, in the summer we used to go to the beach for a swim to “ fossa creta” (TN literally the “clay pit”) where we could get some clay. When I was a little older from 11 to 13 in the summer we went to the rocks in Ognina, when there was still nothing, or almost nothing in an area called  U  Carrubbineri (the Carabiniere)  and every now and then we even caught something”.

Leo Gullotta’s Catania is  full of memories, which comes to life when we ask him what he would recommend his friends to see in the city: “Without a doubt the baroque Palazzo Biscari, Via Crociferi, Castello Ursino passing through piazza Duomo,  Porta Ferdinandea, “u futtino”( the fort) as we used to  call it, with its black and white  lava stone. Via Garibaldi and via Vittorio Emanuele, two roads from the end of the eighteenth and ninetieth centuries which are now somewhat neglected. Piazza Dante and the baroque Benedictine Monastery which is now home to the University of Catania, and the adjacent Ursino Recupero Library with its historical floor. Then there’s the fish market, “a’ piscaria”.  A trip to Etna and its landscape, the house where Giovanni Verga was born in via Sant’Anna 8”.

He pauses briefly and then says: “In Catania everything is tourism”. We have to give it to him there.  After the places we inevitably ask him about the food, another important “factor” in the city. “Sicilian cuisine is full of wonderful colours – he exclaims. I’d say U’ Bastardu Affogato (steamed cauliflower with onions, anchovies and red wine), Sarde “a becca fico” (stuffed sardines), Pasta alla Norma (pasta with aubergine, tomato, basil and salted ricotta cheese) and baked peppers”. Typical Catania cuisine.  And deserts? Smiling he replies: “I’m the son of a pastry chef; I grew up surrounded by cream. Above all there are the canola filled with ricotta cheese and orange zest and candied fruit.  I suggest you also try them with Bronte pistachio cream, the symbol of Etna.”

LEO GULLOTTA

Theatre, cinema and television actor, 66 years old. He made his show business debut as an extra at the Massimo Bellini Theatre in Catania. Leo Gullotta is one of the most respected personalities in the eyes of both critics and the public.  His long career is glittered with awards and honours. He has appeared in numerous plays and films.  To name just one Cinema Paradiso by Giuseppe Tornatore, which won the Oscar for the best foreign film in 1989. As a comic and dramatic character actor he started his career at the Stabile Theatre in Catania with masters of such calibre as Salvo Randone and Turi Ferro. Apart from theatre, television and cinema his career also includes work as a dubbing speaker.  In 2010 he celebrated 50 years in show business.