At least that's what her dear mother Madge told her at a tender age. Madge was known to throw back a few on a daily basis, so it's difficult to determine the accuracy of any of her statements.
(Dona at two months, already posing
and flaunting her special tude)
An only child - rare for an Italian family, but Donato left Madge after a year - Dona attended the High School of Performing Arts but dropped out in her senior year due to artistic differences. She claimed her teachers abused her; they responded that she just couldn't cut the mustard. "If only Madge had been a stage mama and stood up and fought for me, I might have been a star today." Rejected by every drama school on the Eastern seaboard, Dona fled to Italy where she spent 25 years as a student of Roberto Fussolini, who, she insists, taught her good breeding and the means to support herself as a singer, actress and writer. She was quoted, "These years are the highlight of my life, and Roberto is an angel". She married Fussolini in 1988, but divorced him after a short six months. Soon after, Fussolini was arrested for illegal prostitution (Yes, even abroad, you can go too far!) and Dona fled the country. She refuses to discuss her marriage to him. To one interviewer, she was heard to shriek "Que bruto! Ugly c- - - s- - - - - - pig!" Dona brought her ailing mother over to Italy and cared for her until her death in 1985. "If only mama had stayed off the sauce, she could have been something!"
Back in New York, Dona persevered and her first tell-all book How I Learned to Survive My Brooklyn Neighborhood as an Underappreciated Child Prodigy was an instant bestseller in 1989. She topped that with her first film That Damned Homophobic Village in 1990, which earned her a Golden Globe for best screenplay and an Oscar nomination in the same category. In the 90s Dona wrote a column for the Village Voice on Broadway Celebrities and won a Peter Fuchs Award and garnered a Pulitzer nomination for her special at home, up close and personal interview with Patti LuPone - "A brilliant fellow diva, who has since won a second well deserved Tony Award for Gypsy." It is LuPone who christened her Diva Dona, as the two became bosom buddies. Dona yearns to play Vera to La LuPone's Mame, or is it the other way around?
A vibrant woman and superb writer, Diva Dona will begin a second column right here in January, 2011. She asks that you forget her contributions from May - August of 2010, as they were "totally beneath my talent and expertise. I was going through a rough time and friend Don Grigware offered me a chance to write for his website. I thought I really screwed up, but dear Don is giving me a second chance. Bless you, dear Don! You are number one and put the doll in dollcakes!"
"I am really looking forward to dishing in my new column. Love these new Hollywood celebs, but, watch out, if you do it, I'll report it! Dona's back in town!"
ps "I understand my pal Patti LuPone is possibly returning to Broadway in Hello Dolly. Great role for her; she was born to play Dolly Levi. Every diva should - even I have my claws...I mean feelers out!!!"
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