Leo Sayer's wife saved him from drowning - 'I went under the waves seven times'
A lot of men reckon their other halves are life-savers but for 1970s pop sensation Leo Sayer it is actually true.
A year after they met, his then girlfriend Donatella rescued the singer after he got into trouble snorkelling and went under the waves seven times.
Donatella’s calm heroics would be enough to make any man immediately pop the question, but Leo clearly is not one for rash gestures.
So a mere 37 years and two months later the couple finally tied the knot.
Leo, 75, says: “We got to a point in our lives where we were happy; really settled, we had some money coming in and security, so we turned round to each other and said: ‘let’s do it’.
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“I think at 75 and 65 you’re realising you’re not going to go anywhere else in life. I’ll keep travelling and working until I’m at least 80 or 85 – but it’s nice to know where home is. And home is not just a place, it’s the person you’re with.”
Leo Sayer in 1977 (Daily Record)
Leo holding his Grammy in 1978 (Newcastle Chronicle)For Leo, whose huge hits include More Than I Can Say and When I Need You, it was love at first sight when he saw Italian waitress Donatella working at a restaurant near his London home.
It was 1984 and he had recently separated from first wife Janice. The next year the couple went on holiday to a remote island in the Seychelles where their snorkelling trip went badly wrong.
Leo says: “I’ve never been able to swim and I’ve always been scared of water, so I had my flippers and snorkel and even baby water wings.
“We never did more than 20 minutes, but that morning I looked up and the island was tiny – we’d drifted out so far.
“I lost it and went down about seven times. Dona fished me out and kicked me off, because I was hanging on to her.
“She’s a good swimmer and she managed to get us back to shore – but it took an hour.”
Leo is no stranger to drama. He shot to overnight fame 50 years ago when he appeared on Top of the Pops as a Pierrot clown to sing his second single, The Show Must Go On.
A string of top 10 records followed and Leo became one of the biggest stars of the 70s and 80s. You Make Me Feel Like Dancing topped the US charts in 1976 and he went on to sell millions of albums around the world.
Success ensured Leo was plastered across the covers of magazines and news-papers – but he had already made the news before his music career began.
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In 1967, as a teenage hotel porter in Hove, East Sussex, he saved eight guests from a blaze, which claimed five lives.
Leo and Dona tie the knot (Instagram/ @jackie_frank)He recalls: “The whole hotel caught light. I was summoned by the manager to get people out.
“I took the lift up and I found some people and pulled them in and brought them down. Something compelled me to go back up again and this time it was really bad.
“The lift buckled and crashed to the ground just as I got out of it.
“I ended up going up the central stair column. They say that I saved about eight people but I also saw a lot of people die.”
Two of the dead were a couple that Leo had befriended. He says: “Mr Politi and this lovely lady Mrs Vandersluis were divorcees and couldn’t be seen together, so I used to run notes between them.
“When the fire broke out, I got them together into an upper bedroom where I thought it would be safe.
“I put them on the bed but, at that moment, the door burnt through and the fire took hold. I smashed a chair through the window. They were telling me to go and leave them there.
“One of my biggest regrets is that I did leave them. I don’t think I would have had the strength to drag them with me. I climbed out of the window and a fire ladder from the truck came round and scooped me out.
“I was saved, but they weren’t. I watched them die in each other’s arms.” Leo, who went by his birth name Gerard at the time, was lauded for his bravery at The King’s Hotel.
He said: “I was in the local paper – they were saying ‘Gerry, 19, is fire hero’. It’s embarrassing in a way.”
Leo, who was raised in Sussex and spent many years living in London and America, moved to a small village south of Sydney, Australia, in 2005. He became an Australian citizen in 2009.
He explains: “Australia suits my personality – I feel so at home here.
“There’s a lot of space and a lot of freedom of thought. I’m in the middle of the countryside and every day I feed kookaburras in the garden.
“I first came here in 1975 and fell in love with the country, but I love coming back to Britain, where I still have family – my older sister and younger brother and lots of nieces and nephews.”
He won a Grammy in 1978 for You Make me Feel Like Dancing and Leo reached a whole new audience in 2006 when DJ Meck’s remix of his hit Thunder in My Heart hit number one.
The following year he stormed out of Channel 4 ’s Celebrity Big Brother house because they would not give him clean pants.
And now he is hoping to make the news yet again with a new single Think Loud, released by Kindred Spirit, in aid of speech therapy for sufferers of Parkinson’s disease.
He says: “Parkinson’s robs you of having a fast answer to anything. Someone with Parkinson’s might not be able to do interviews so I feel thrilled to be in the position to be their voice.”
Cheerful and full of life, Leo is as enthusiastic as a man half his age, despite having a reason to be bitter.
In the mid-80s he discovered his manager Adam Faith had badly mishandled his affairs and much of the millions he earned in the previous decade had been lost. He says: “You might have sold 80 million records but somebody else has pocketed the money.
“There are always going to be difficulties in life which are very testing, but you’ve got to rise above it.
“As long as the sun is shining and the moon is glowing that’s all you need.”
Ten years ago Leo had intestinal ulcers and a tumour removed. He also has problems with his heart.
But he says: “You can’t do much about your body. I’ve got three stents, a partial kneecap replacement from falling off stage many years ago and an irritable bowel. I watch what I eat. But with a good mental attitude you can defeat or control most of those things.”
And he is still performing. He did a gig on his birthday in May and said: “I walked out in front of a fabulous audience. I thought: ‘How f***ing lucky am I? This is where I belong.’ As long as I can do that, everything is OK.”
* Think Loud is in aid of speech therapy for Parkinson’s sufferers. Donate at justgiving.com/campaign/thinkloud4pd
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