Osvaldo Riva

Osvaldo Riva was an Italian wrestler who competed at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. In Italy he served in the Italian Resistance during World War II, although he was quite young. Riva became the model for a giant statue of a fisherman that overlooked the harbor in Genova.

Riva’s life story after the Olympics is somewhat unusual. A gentleman named Richard Coolidge from Ogunquit, Maine in the United States was quite well off and frequently went on holiday in Italy. With his partner, Coolidge owned The Dan Sing Fan, a teahouse restaurant atop Perkins Cove in Ogunquit, known for its Chinese pagoda-style architecture. On one of his trips to Italy Coolidge became friends with Riva.

In 1957, although he was by then almost 30-years-old, Riva was adopted by Coolidge and settled in the United States in Maine. In the mid-1960s, Ozzie Coolidge, as he became known, took over the Ogunquit restaurant and renamed it the Cove Garden, transforming it into a fine Italian restaurant. Riva-Coolidge became a USA citizen and a passionate American. He retired from his restaurant in 1995 and then frequently visited his native Italy, where he died in his hometown of Genova.