Growing Up
Costa was born in Lingua di Salina, Italy, near Sicily, and lived there until his family immigrated to Australia when he was six years old. The family settled in Rockdale, New South Wales, where Costa helped out in his father’s fruit store. He excelled at school sports, and became interested in weightlifting at an early age. At age 16, Costa took up amateur boxing despite his father’s wishes that he should become an opera singer. Costa was approached by Australian middleweight wrestling champion "Basher Bonas", who convinced him to try wrestling. Costa made his debut under an assumed name; his father still had hopes of him becoming an opera singer, and he did not want his parents to find out that he was wrestling. He came up with the name "Al Costello", thinking it sounded tough like a portmanteau of Al Capone and Frank Costello.
Read more about this topic: Al Costello
Famous quotes containing the word growing:
“He could walk, or rather turn about in his little garden, and feel more solid happiness from the flourishing of a cabbage or the growing of a turnip than was ever received from the most ostentatious show the vanity of man could possibly invent. He could delight himself with thinking, “Here will I set such a root, because my Camilla likes it; here, such another, because it is my little David’s favorite.””
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“The growing of food and the growing of children are both vital to the family’s survival.... Who would dare make the judgment that holding your youngest baby on your lap is less important than weeding a few more yards in the maize field? Yet this is the judgment our society makes constantly. Production of autos, canned soup, advertising copy is important. Housework—cleaning, feeding, and caring—is unimportant.”
—Debbie Taylor (20th century)