Miracle in Downingtown: After 57 years, father, son connect

Rick DeBenedetto had just a few fragments of information about his father.

One was a city: Reno, Nev., where his mother had loved to listen to his father's band play and where DeBenedetto was conceived.

Another was his parents' ages at his birth in 1959: his father was 31; his mother, 18. When she got pregnant by a musician - although the two weren't a couple - and returned home alone to California, it was a family scandal.

The biggest was the birth certificate: Gilbetto Jiovanni De Benedetto, it read in the space for the father's name. Occupation: Musician.

The name was almost spelled right.

The place where Gil DiBenedetto ended up is 2,630 miles from Reno.

He got to the Philadelphia area via a life of playing music on the road. In 1968, he came to Downingtown to be band director at Mickey Rooney's famed club, where he stayed for 16 years.

Just before Christmas, DiBenedetto, now 87 and battling three cancers, sat down with an Inquirer reporter for a feature article to recount those days.

He had married once but divorced. He thought he didn't have any children. Friends had wondered whether he might have offspring out there somewhere, but they had never known.

Last July, he was given two months to live - but he has held on.

Long enough for his son to find him.

It was in February on the other side of the country that Rick DeBenedetto, now 56, who lives with his own family in Spokane, Wash., began searching online for his dad. His mother was ill with stage four lung cancer, and he figured if he had any questions about the family tree, he needed to ask them now.

Sifting through results for "DeBenedetto," a common Italian name, as well as searching for "Gil Bennett," his father's stage name, was tricky. But through his research he figured out that the Gil he was looking for was the same man as a musician he found referenced on the Internet: Gilly DiBenedetto.

So he typed "Gilly DiBenedetto" into the search bar and found the Inquirer article, which said that Gilly now lived in a nursing home in Downingtown.

Everything - where Gilly had lived, with whom he had played - lined up with stories Rick DeBenedetto's mother had told him. And when he saw a video of Gilly playing clarinet, he recognized his own profile on the older man's face.

"When it all fell into place, it was funny, it was kind of like dominoes," DeBenedetto said. "My skin crawled. The hair stood up. It was like an electric, tingly feeling all over."

DeBenedetto got in touch with two of Gilly's friends mentioned in the article. Last month, he flew from Spokane to Philadelphia.

DeBenedetto had never been to the Northeast, but getting off the plane, something came over him. He almost felt at home.

"It was an eerie feeling, one I can't even describe," he said.

On Leap Day, over cheesesteaks - Rick DeBenedetto's first - he sat with Gilly and Gilly's old friend Victor Gabriel. DeBenedetto, not one to make rash decisions, was nervous.

They'd planned to wait to tell Gilly until later that day, but there in the sandwich shop, DeBenedetto recounted, Gabriel suddenly leaned over to Gilly:

"Hey, Gil, you know what? This is your son, Gil."

The old man looked at DeBenedetto, the younger man remembers. "Oh my God," he said, in his raspy voice. "That's beautiful."

Gilly kept hugging DeBenedetto and shaking his hand.

"I can't believe it," he repeated. "This is such a blessing."

To DiBenedetto and DeBenedetto, there is no question they are indeed father and son: the timing, facts, and memories all line up. So do other things.

"It's just spooky, the resemblances on certain things," DeBenedetto said. "The nose, . . . the shape of the forehead. . . . The lips, especially the lips. I always wondered where I'd gotten these lips."

Although music was never his passion, DeBenedetto plays piano and guitar. He's also learned he shares characteristics with Gilly's brother, he said.

Gilly never knew about DeBenedetto's mother's pregnancy.

"I love him," Gilly said on a recent afternoon. "But I don't deserve him." The old man smiled, thinking about DeBenedetto's next visit, and patted his heart.

Last week, DeBenedetto returned to Downingtown for a second visit. He took Gilly on drives through the countryside. They bought new clarinet reeds, went shopping for sunglasses, and lunched together. The pair felt an instant bond, he said.

Gilly wanted to show him off.

"Now he's telling people he has a son," DeBenedetto said. "When we run into somebody - 'This is my son, Rick!' "

On Monday night, DeBenedetto took Gilly and his two friends out to dinner. They ate Italian food, and then Gilly played "Easter Parade" on the clarinet. The entire restaurant got quiet, then applauded.

Gilly keeps his son's photo next to his bed. DeBenedetto hopes to visit every two to three weeks for as long as his father has left, he said.

The revelation is dizzying. DeBenedetto regrets not trying to put all the pieces together sooner. But he is elated to have finally found Gil.

"It's beyond words," DeBenedetto said. "It's like some missing pieces are kind of falling into place, and I feel more complete."

He grew up close to a stepfather, and he had never tried to find his father because of other family circumstances.

As he got older, he wondered more.

"I didn't dwell on it," he said, "but, yes, it would come up."

When DeBenedetto got home from his first trip to Downingtown, he told his brother and stepdad. But two weeks ago, before DeBenedetto could break the news to her, his mother died.

He wishes he could have told her. His mother had been infatuated with Gilly and his music, DeBenedetto said.

But for himself, and for Gilly, it's a new chapter late in life.

"It's bizarre," DeBenedetto said. "I hear people say things are meant to be . . . and my own personal beliefs, I don't tend to go that way. But on this one, I don't know what to think."

jmcdaniel@philly.com

610-313-8205@McDanielJustine