The drama of the actress with the monk son, widowed at 46. Valeria Seciu remained at peace until she died, in solitude

Valeria Seciu was one of the country’s best-loved theatre and film actresses, and that’s a fact.

Sadly, the artist passed away recently, on September 6, 2022 and left a huge void in the hearts of Romanian cinephiles. It is enough to read the comments on social media to any material related to Valeria Seciu, to understand the extent of the phenomenon she created, throughout her career, around herself and her art.

Valeria Seciu, a sensitive soul and an artist like no other

Valeria Seciu lost the great actor Octavian Cotescu at an age when other women would have enjoyed their marriage and their love story to the full.

Together with Octavian Cotescu, the actress Valeria Seciu had a child, Alexandru Cotescu, who, in 1974, received the incomparable opportunity to play in the film “Păcală”, and later became a monk and retired to the holy places on Mount Athos, taking the name Daniil.

After Octavian Cotescu’s disappearance, Valeria Seciu did not want to remarry, preferring to live with the memory of the good times, remaining faithful to the one who was the love of her life.

In fact, the sadness with which she lived, immediately after Octavian Cotescu’s death, was to be seen on her face, in every aspect.

How actor Octavian Cotescu, Valerie Seciu’s great love, died

Just as I told you in a previous article, in 1985, Octavian Cotescu suffered, for the first time, from a sickness.

The writer Ion Băieșu would later tell about the actor’s “needle-like” health. According to the latter, he warned Cotescu to take better care of himself, but Cotescu did not listen.

According to the writer’s accounts, the actor would have entered the backstage of the Bulandra Theatre one evening, as he had done many times before. According to tradition, before the performance, the two used to have a coffee together.

But, atypically, this time Octavian Cotescu did not seem at all enthusiastic about the performance he was to perform in, telling the writer that he felt dizzy and was afraid to go on stage. He had taken a painkiller, but the medicine had not worked as he had expected.

Noticing the seriousness of the situation, Ion Băieșu advised Cotescu to postpone the performance, but was refused, receiving the following reply: “What is the audience doing? Go home? What’s his fault that I don’t feel well?”.

“Any man but an actor! That’s an essential thing to think about when you choose such a profession. Because you choose it, nobody forces you. You don’t become a pilot if you know you’re height sick. You don’t become an actor if you are physically vulnerable”, Octavian Cotescu would have answered Ion Băieșu.

“He was sweating enormously, he was congested, his voice had altered, he had uncertain gestures, he stumbled a few times, at one point he paused for a long time between lines, looking backstage”, Băieșu reported in the newspaper Informația Bucureștiului in 1985.

“By a superhuman effort he carried the show to the end. The audience received, as if, the mysterious signal of his extraordinary gesture and, overwhelmed, applauded madly”, he added, about Octavian Cotescu’s performance that evening.

He admitted himself to hospital at the last minute and without his family knowing it. It was all too late, and the doctors could do nothing to help him. A few days later, the actor closed his eyes for the last time, leaving Valeria Seciu alone.