Early Years
Cosima De Vito was born on 1 November 1976 and grew up in Hamilton Hill, a suburb of Perth. Her father, Carlo De Vito, is an Italian-born house painter and contractor and her mother, Maria, is a partner in the family business. De Vito's grandfather was an Italian tenor who sang Neapolitan folk songs and opera. In 2006 De Vito's younger brother, Modesto (born ca 1980), joined his parents' firm as a painter, their younger sister is Sarina (born ca 1985). De Vito entered various talent contests while in primary school – at the age of nine she won a competition. She cited Whitney Houston, Shirley Bassey, Tina Turner and Karen Carpenter as being major influences on her personal style. She attended Murdoch University, and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree – major in finance and banking. Turning to a career in entertainment, De Vito made contact with talent agents who enabled her to travel to Nashville, Tennessee in 2001 to record a demo tape and discuss a recording deal but was turned down because of a lack of an Australian fan base. During 2003 De Vito worked as an office administrator in a Perth publicity and conference business.
Read more about this topic: Cosima De Vito
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“Today’s pressures on middle-class children to grow up fast begin in early childhood. Chief among them is the pressure for early intellectual attainment, deriving from a changed perception of precocity. Several decades ago precocity was looked upon with great suspicion. The child prodigy, it was thought, turned out to be a neurotic adult; thus the phrase “early ripe, early rot!””
—David Elkind (20th century)
“The discovery of Pennsylvania’s coal and iron was the deathblow to Allaire. The works were moved to Pennsylvania so hurriedly that for years pianos and the larger pieces of furniture stood in the deserted houses.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)