I remember going to see the movie Diva when it ran at the Ritz 3 back in 1981 and enjoying it. The role of the diva, a Black American opera singer named Cynthia Hawkins, was portrayed by Black South Philadelphia native opera singer Wilhelmenia Fernandez.

And I couldn’t have named any of the other actors as they were all French and unknown to me, although they were very good.

The plot revolved around around two tape recordings; one of them made surreptitiously by Jules, the protagonist, at a concert given by the diva, and the other one, containing evidence that incriminates a senior police official in a prostitution ring, is dropped into Jules’s bag by a woman fleeing the bad guys.

A few years ago I got the DVD and added the movie to my Plex library and enjoyed watching it again after all those years.

But yesterday, after reading about the untimely death of Wilhelmenia Fernandez from cancer, I decided to view it yet again.

And this time I was struck by the actor who played Jules: Frédéric Andréi.

Because I thought he bore a striking resemblance to Dave DeTullio, my first roommate at Penn State.

Had I never noticed it before? I don’t know. Perhaps it hit me this time because Dave has been on my mind for the last few months ever since I discovered he died much too young.