Lory Del Santo is strong and courageous, but at the same time immensely grieved. In her program 'Italian Stories' a few years ago, she recounted the terrible tragedy of losing three children.
Many will remember the tragedy that occurred on March 20, 1991, when little Connor, her child with musician Eric Clapton, accidentally fell from the 53rd floor of a skyscraper in New York. The boy was only 5 years old.
These are Clapton's words immediately after the event: "I received a call from the apartment. I was getting ready to pick him up and take him out to lunch. Lory was on the other end of the phone screaming hysterically, saying he was dead. I couldn't believe it."
Unfortunately, in addition to a great love story, Lory del Santo and Eric Clapton would also share indescribable pain.
A few months after the terrible accident Clapton wrote and dedicated to his son Connor one of his most beautiful songs: 'Tears in Heaven'.
From the first [referring to the death of Connor, the first child], I never recovered. It was an accident caused by an inattentive person and without my knowledge. I never recovered and I never will.
Lory and Eric Clapton's relationship did not survive the tragedy. After ten years of marriage, they divorced in 1989.
Unfortunately, Connor's death wouldn't be the only dramatic moment in Lory Del Santo's life. In 2018, her son Loren, born in 1999, took his own life. Loren's father is the German Dennis Schaller, whose identity Del Santo didn't reveal until 2020.
When Loren was three years old, [Dennis Schaller] one day came into my office," she recounted in the Italian talk show 'Domenica Live.' "Suddenly, he said to me: 'I heard you had a baby, I know it's mine, I would like to see it.' I said to him: 'Okay, but before that happens I want to talk to you.' I asked him for an appointment in Milan the next day, at any time he wanted.
But Loren's father never showed up to that appointment: "He was never seen or heard from again. I didn't even know where he was in the world."
Not even after the tragic death of Loren did his father contact the family. Lory Del Santo says she doesn't hold a grudge and says she was grateful for the gift she received: the joy of having had that son.
Loren suffered from an illness that Lory Del Santo was unaware of, anhedonia. It's a disorder that leads to dissociation from reality. The illness led him to take his own life at the age of 19.
Few people are aware that the beautiful actress also had a third major loss. It was her second child, in the early 90s. She had the child with tennis player Richard Krajicek. Sadly, the baby died when it was only 15 days old due to an infection.
Hers is undoubtedly a very touching story that leaves no one indifferent. As Lory Del Santo herself says: "Life is an adventure, it really is like being on a swing, up, down, happiness, unhappiness. However, it is worth living."