«Maurizio asked me: “What do you think happens when you go to the other world?” I replied: “I don’t know, but we will get better”. “And will I be able to have a TV?”. “I do not think so”. “You know how boring then.” “But no, you will live in the peace of the Lord”. Well, then we’ll make sure that the one who comes first waits for the other».
Best friends for 50 years, Maurizio Costanzo and Giorgio Assumma, 88, former president of Siae, lawyer and confidant of many film and television stars, met in 1973. «I was President of Rusconi Film, I contacted him about a biopic about De Gasperi, then politics forced Rossellini on us. He didn’t accept it: “That’s how the world works”. But since then we haven’t lost our way. At least one phone call a day, coffee every Monday and Wednesday in the Vanni bar in front of the Rai. He asked my opinion on each of his projects, I advise on court cases, never a disagreement».
At the Parioli Theater, a front row seat was always reserved for Assumma for the Maurizio Costanzo show. “‘When you’re here, I feel calmer.’ The only time I missed it, they planted the bomb on Via Fauro.Since then, Maurizio made me promise that I would never lose an episode again.”
And in fact. «Ten days later, it was Saturday, I met Maria in a bar on Viale Mazzini. “I came to see an aunt.” I pretended to believe her. On Monday, Maurizio told me: “Do you know that Dr. De Filippi is smart, I would like to have her as my assistant”. And that’s how it went.”
Everything else is life. Wedding in the Capitol 1995Celebrant Francesco Rutelli, reception for a hundred guests a Assumma villa. “‘Thanks to you, I’ve found the woman I dreamed of, the woman I’d like to look into the eyes of as I walk away,’ she confided.
Every August we all left for Ansedonia. At 7, just the two of us, we had breakfast and read the newspaper, then Maurizio dove into the pool without swimming, still in the water with his head out. He carried with him the tapes of Totò’s films, he must have seen her dozens of times how much he laughed. In the evening we went to a small village in Maremma for ballroom dancing with the local orchestra, he only the slow ones Those of the brick, however, enjoyed it. After three days of vacation, however, he began to get angry that he could no longer do without work. “Blessed are you,” he said to me as I left for Rome.
Before he met Maria, he had never taken a vacation. AND He’s never been on a diet. One morning in San Giuseppe we had coffee and, at my insistence, even a small donut with cream. In the afternoon I went back to the same bar and the owner said to me, ‘You know, lawyer, this friend of yours came back and ate twelve beignets, one after the other”. Then it came Maria holding him by the stick and she asked the secretaries to rat on her when her husband was wrong. Mauritius he secretly bought sweets».
They last spoke on Thursday.
“I called him at the clinic. Maurizio was much better, he had survived the small operation well, a small thing none of us were prepared for the worst. He was in a great mood, we talked about work, a new screenplay for the cinema, a contract for television. He greeted me like this: “See you soon, so not this one, but I’m going out next week”.
And instead a pneumonia he took it away. The next day he died. He was my one true friend. Who am I talking to now?”
February 26, 2023
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