Chris Rea(1951-2025)

Chris Rea had Irish and Italian parents. His first ambition was to be a journalist, which ended when a college teacher tore up one of his essays. Afterwards, he went to work in his father's ice cream factory. Away from music, Chris' passion was motor racing and Ferrari cars. He held a full racing license, doing 18 laps in a Jordan Formula One car and raced a BMW touring car shoot out in the TOCA shoot out at Donington Park, side by side with Nigel Mansell. Having given up motor racing, he almost lost his life when a medical ailment immobilized him for 18 months. However, confined to bed, he used his time to dictate the script for La Passione. He had no need to work, since his father owned an ice cream business, to which Chris was the only inheritor. His ambition was to travel to his Italian homeland and to own a Ferrari.