Peninsula’s free spirit dies at 58

BALBOA PENINSULA — Gene Altobello: Aspiring actor. Musician. Decorated U.S. Army sniper. Poet. Advice giver. Transient.

When he died Aug. 1 at age 58, Gene Altobello left a family he rarely saw and a long list of acquaintances and friends who looked forward to speaking with him daily.

He was well-known on the peninsula where he spent his days walking the streets and talking to people, and where he sometimes slept behind the building that houses the library and fire station.

The fact that he was an intelligent man — some who knew him thought he had been a college professor, but his family said that wasn’t the case — made his wandering lifestyle more of a mystery.

“He was not my idea of a homeless person, the way he carried himself,” said Barbara Zinzer, a Balboa branch librarian. “He was an enigma to us all.”

Born in the Bronx, Altobello lived in New York during the early part of his life, said his daughter, Morgan Altobello. He was a sniper for the U.S. Army, his 13 months of service in Vietnam earning him two bronze stars as well as other medals.

Morgan also described her father as an aspiring actor who loved Shakespeare; he drew pictures and wrote poetry; and he played the guitar and sang.

“I just think in general he had this amazing spirit,” she said. “He gets along with anybody, really, and can somehow find a relation to the randomest person in the world.”

That’s how he was known to friends in Newport — as a free spirit. Altobello had lived in Newport Beach for about 18 years and on the peninsula for 14, during most of which he had no permanent address, Morgan said.

“He always seemed to have a little quip, like ‘nice weather,’ when it would be freezing cold,” Balboa Beacon publisher Gay Wassall-Kelly said.

Tom Robertson, who manages the Balboa Pharmacy and would sometimes give Altobello food, remembered he didn’t like to ask for anything, except maybe a cigarette.

“What I liked about him is here’s a guy who’s on the street, and if you’ve got a problem, he’s worried about you,” Robertson said. “I had some surgery, and he knew about it, and he was always asking me how I’m doing.”

The owners of Bal Harbor liquor store and deli trusted Altobello to come back and pay for his purchases later if they were busy when he first came in. He’d stop by every day, asking about plans to remodel the store and offering advice on personal problems, said Hali Singh, who owns Bal Harbor with her husband.

If anyone came in swearing during her shift, Singh said, Altobello would remind them, “There’s a lady present here,” and ask them to watch their language.

Several people who knew him said he was always polite — “a gentleman from the word go,” Wassall-Kelly said.

Though many locals saw him every day, they didn’t completely understand him.

Morgan said she’s not sure why he chose a wandering life. He sometimes lived at the Ramada hotel near Newport Boulevard, and some nights he slept by the ocean.

“He wanted to be free, under the sun, by the ocean,” she said. “I think it was just all really about freedom and not being tied down by what the government wants us to do and wants us to be.”

Altobello experienced post-traumatic stress disorder from his military experience, Morgan said, and he had problems with alcohol and had been on medication for “a long time.”

Those who knew him more recently said they think he was no longer drinking but that he had cancer. The Orange County Coroner has not yet determined the cause of Altobello’s death.

Over the years, friends and family tried to help him, but he drifted away.

He would call on Christmas, but for Morgan and her brother to see him, she said, “We would just have to go down there [to the peninsula] and walk up and down until we found him.”

Morgan has since moved across the country, but she came back recently when her father died.

She, her brother and their mother, Nancy — Altobello’s ex-wife — arranged a memorial service last week by the Balboa Pier. About 60 people attended.

Nancy read some of Altobello’s poetry, and several people spoke about him.

According to Morgan, people from the community who shared their memories said Altobello was “an amazing person, and he was a gentleman and had great integrity — although he may have been to hell and back, he acted like he was in heaven.”