Picture of the Week #118 "O Solo Mio"

Picture of the Week #118 "O Solo Mio" Venice, Italy 1969 Signed and Stamped

Forty-two years ago, way back in 1969 I was attending the Venice Film Festival where I spent most of my time walking around and taking pictures in between hawking my movies. I was under contract to a company called The Alliance Company who had a house on the Grand Canal where we stayed. The "we" being my Producer Jay Pati and Executive Producer Nick Finnerty. We had two boats at our disposal at any given time. One an elegant Speedboat and the other we used for Water Skiing. I actually received a ticket for driving the boat too fast with Jay Pati on the ski's. I also used to ride down the Canals in a gondola and this picture is of my Gondolier who sang "O Solo Mio" to me as I took in the magic of Venice. In 1976 I made a painting from this image and sold it to a real estate broker down the street from where I live in Bel Air. It hangs prominently in his house and it always brings back fond memories of a city that I cherish. Now I am off to Venice for the Carnivale and thought this would be an appropriate image to post now.