“Eleanor Daniel: From Childhood Dreams to Reality TV Stardom and Motherhood”

“I still dream about that house today.” To figure out who it is Eleanor Daniel, it is more than ever necessary to start from her past, from her parents’ house in the Veneto countryside, where she grew up, the last of four siblings. ‘There was a huge wisteria in the garden, very beautiful. My brother Luigi and I were often down there… selling it was an enormous pain, if I could go back I would love to save it».

How come you had to do this?
«My brother Luigi (who died in 2015, at the age of 44, ndr) was autistic. Families who know the disability have to face great difficulties, including economic ones: my father hadn’t had a choice, but he strongly blamed this decision. The feeling for everyone was that of having their roots taken away. But we also needed a comfortable place, closer to the center, where my brother could be followed better. It was the only decision to make.’

What was his family like?
«My mother was good, but my brother’s condition suffered a lot. My father, who was really in love with her, tried hard never to lose her smile, despite her difficulties. And so it was a sun. He repeated that the Lord gives the cross to those who know how to carry it and, in fact, he kept this family together, giving it a lot of stability, as only a tightrope walker could do. She was a determining figure for me: he and my mother taught me resilience ».

And she? What child was she?
‘I was very quiet, I watched everything. In a family facing disability it is as if everyone were a cog, in some ways: if you jump, the whole carousel jumps. In all of this my father was a great reference: he never backed down from all the challenges and never lost his smile. At 70 he had rolled up his sleeves and started a new job in order to bring the money home».

What were your dreams at that time?
“I wanted to be a teacher. Basically I wanted to continue studying. I was very good at school, but again for economic reasons I was unable to go to university and had to start working. I was 19. Having to abandon that dream of mine made me very angry, even if I understood the reasons. Over the years, much later, I enrolled in Communication Sciences and, after that, I re-enrolled in Psychology, I’m in my second year».

How did the show come into your life?
«I worked in a bank but every now and then the local showrooms called me to be a model. Then, a local broadcaster chose me to do video interviews. Like: there’s Renato Balestra as a guest in a club, go and interview him. I had a Venetian accent which, much later, I only removed after five years of diction. But they paid me a lot, at least in proportion, that is, compared to what I was getting in those years».

Is there any meeting from those years that you remember in particular?
«One of my first interviews comes to mind, with Nicoletta Orsomando, who was a kind of myth for me. However, I have never looked for this profession, it has arrived».

Did beauty count?
“I grew up with Ugly Duckling Syndrome.”

Here, however, this is hardly credible.
‘But it’s true: I was often teased about my body. I was very thin, sometimes I even put on two pairs of pants to look fatter: a black jumpsuit under my jeans to have some extra shape. Then I covered my arms, very thin. In short, I was ashamed. That wasn’t enough, even that the boys called me Olivia or “alicetta”… they told me that my sisters, who are ten years older than me, were beautiful and I wasn’t. In short, really, I was considered for years as one of the ugliest in the school».

When did things start to change? Remember the moment?
“During my adolescence someone had timidly started bringing me a mimosa on Women’s Day, but they were never the ones I liked: I had no hope with them.”

Yet shortly after, Miss Italy arrived.
‘I always came second. And something unexpected always happened, every time I had to participate in the selections. To me or to others: a possibility opened up but I had to arrive the next day in Sardinia, so to speak. Then I participated in the national competition as Miss Veneto, in Salsomaggiore».

The turning point, however, came with “Big Brother”. It was 2001.
«Before I had worked as an extra on “La sai l’ultima?” with Gigi Sabani and Natalia Estrada, but I still thought they were temporary experiences: I continued to work in a bank. There was a colleague of mine who followed Big Brother avidly and I remember that I thought she was crazy for being passionate about that programme. I did not understand the phenomenon. A short time later I presented myself to the auditions anyway».

Jack. And from there, her life changed.
‘Soon after that I started doing TV promotions, for a couple of years. On that occasion I met Mara Venier and she was very nice to me: in the promotions they had given me another name, but she said that I hadn’t come out of nowhere, so they had to call me by my name. A small thing, but an important one».

How was this big change in his career seen in his family?
“My father had some fears. He was a man tied to old traditions: for him the show was a world made of lights and few contents… in a certain sense he could have been the father of Checco Zalone in the film in which he reminds him of the importance of a permanent job.. he did it to me too, who at the age of twenty had my job in a bank. In short, he didn’t want me to participate in the reality show. For me, rather, he had other plans.’

Which?
‘He would have wanted me to have a little girl. He wanted to become a grandfather of a little niece».

And a granddaughter has arrived.
‘Much later, he was dead. In fact I say that Carlotta is my dad’s present. I had it when I grew up, I was 43 years old. Some gynecologists had me very scared about the possibility of having children over 40, until I met mine who told me that there were plenty of women my age who wanted to have their first child».

Didn’t you want them before?
«No, indeed. I’d also had half-quarrels with people who didn’t seem to believe in the possibility that a woman didn’t necessarily want to have children. Mine then came naturally but before, not only would I not have wanted it but, at 20 or 30, I wouldn’t even have been able to manage it. I’ve had classmates who had already become mothers in high school, but I’ve never felt this desire. Except once you’re over forty. But for the good part of my life I didn’t think I’d have kids. Carlotta is a small gift from heaven».

Are you a believer?
«Since my father left, I always feel his presence near me, for me he is a kind of guardian angel. I’m not gullible, but I had very strong and deep sensations, of a great closeness to him. But faith also represents a path for me: I had a moment of crisis, in which I questioned everything».

When did it happen?
«Certainly in the suffering that accompanies disability there are moments in which you ask yourself many questions. My brother had very violent crises: I witnessed really tiring situations. There I came to disbelieve, to throw everything into crisis. But it is the very search for God, I believe, that determines your faith. I found it again in the understanding of what surrounds us. Today, I consider myself a Christian. The effort is to try to know how to distinguish when you are experiencing something beautiful and know how to rejoice. I’m trying to change my character, in this sense. My perfectionism didn’t help me».

What did this perfectionism translate into?
‘I never had the will to excel, but, rather, it was as if inside of me I thought that there was always someone better than me. This has led me to suffer from continuous performance anxiety: I’m never satisfied with myself, I look for perfection which, however, is implausible».

Has anyone helped you feel more comfortable in your environment?
«I am very fond of Luca Giurato. I lived with him the years of One morningand it taught me that you can be light-hearted while talking about serious things. She introduced me to this double digit, which helps when you’re entertaining. A very beautiful complicity was born between us, I call him every now and then even today. A lot has remained in my heart».

Other encounters that have remained in your heart?
‘Gina Lollobrigida. When I met her for the first time I was very excited. And I was impressed: a woman like her, who had lived everything she had lived, who had known anyone, with a thousand possibilities, remained an absolutely eclectic person and, above all, an independent woman, in control of herself. For me, this spirit of hers was a great teaching as well as an example of emancipation».

Do you believe that women still have to work hard to achieve the goal of equality?
“Women are victims of constant prejudices and of the sexist subcultures that still exist. On the contrary, with social networks they are spreading. The woman must shine for herself, which means nothing other than being herself, regardless of what others would like. For me this is the fundamental principle from which the revolution of each of us should start».