Franco Gasparri! The Italian heartthrob whose stories and
adventures were in the photoromanze Lebanese equivalents of Samar, Rima and
Dalila. Then he had a motorcycle accident, became wheelchair bound, and women
went into a frenzy because of it. So there it was, Beirut was under siege in
1982, but women were pouring their heart out on the magazine pages writing him
love letters (in Arabic no less!) within the “best love letter to Franco”
competition.