His biography states: “Born in Asti in 1937”. Like Paolo Conte.
“He claims we were classmates. Honestly, it feels like he was a year ahead. But I remember he was a crazy soccer tournament organizer. He did everything, he even designed the uniforms. In the bar with Bruno Gambarotta, beneath his house in Turin, where he has lived for almost seventy years. Crocetta district: “Primo Levi lived right across the street. He was so nice, he always said yes. When I worked at the Rai headquarters in Turin, we asked him for an opinion on everything: the magical Turin, the Turin of seamstresses… Then he shouted to us: “Have mercy, don’t call me anymore. “Nearby were Einaudi, Ginzburg, Bobbio, Arpino, Pitigrilli… Turin was the city of culture.”
However, this summer it became the city of the Segre-Seymandi affair, the banker who publicly left his partner during the engagement party.
“We were shocked. It was a tragic moment for us Turin lovers: in an instant, a centuries-old tradition of Savoyard intimacy was destroyed. A conclave would be necessary to restore the city’s reputation.”
Fate would have wanted her to become a printer.
“Like my father. My mother, on the other hand, was a hairdresser: I grew up in her shop and read women’s books: “Novella”, “Confidenze”, “Grand Hotel”. Then I took a chance on becoming a photographer, but I didn’t have the right reflexes. They sent me to a Tabarin to portray Maria Luisa Garoppo, the super winner of “Leave or double?”, she turned away annoyed. I left my job and my job alone.”
Many years later she would ask the question: “Leave it or double it?”
“At the end of the 1980s I was called to present the program. I asked why they were thinking of me. They replied: “Because you are the exact opposite of Mike Bongiorno. You just have to lose your Piedmontese accent. So I signed up for a speaking course. Halfway through the course, the teacher told me we were done. “Have I lost my accent?” I asked, “No, but it’s coming to me.” Still, in 1990, I made “Do or Double?” with Giancarlo Magalli. It was a resounding failure.
Back then he lived off the sudden fame that “Fantastico 87” brought with him.
«In 1987 they entrusted “Fantastico” to Celentano, who had no idea about television. So they put me next to him to explain the mechanics to him. Impossible: Adriano was completely resistant to everything, he just improvised. His proverbial silence? He just didn’t know what to say. Then he made a sensational faux pas: when explaining a competition, he mentioned the name of one sponsor instead of another. To keep things going, Adriano called me on stage the following week to illustrate how the prize worked and suddenly I became famous.”
After 25 years behind the scenes.
“I came to Rai in Turin in 1962. Then I ended up in Rome to write. In the next room sat the enchanting Raffaele La Capria, in mine the Trieste author Renzo Rosso and Andrea Camilleri. But they were never there: in Rome, as I discovered, the meetings took place at home. Thanks to La Capria I had unforgettable evenings.”
What was Camilleri like?
“He had a real talent for oral storytelling. I met him many years later in Turin. I picked him up at the Hotel Roma. He was angry. As a favor to him, the hotel owner suggested that he sleep in the room where Pavese committed suicide.
Did you prefer the RAI of those years?
“I loved Angelo Guglielmi’s Rai 3, he was a real subversive. For me, the Gruppo ’63 was a myth, Umberto Eco and Edoardo Sanguineti were great, but Guglielmi was the real culture bomber.”
Then came Berlusconi.
“How could you say no to someone like that? He sent Raffaella Carrà two hundred red roses every day, and Pippo Baudo had him picked up in a private plane. Rai didn’t even refund me for the bike. The older ones left state television.
A bit like what happened now with Fazio and Littizzetto.
“They did it well, instead of feeling particularly monitored… Fazio is a true TV innovator, he will come up with something effective.” When he invented “Quelli che il calcio” it was a revolution: that was until then Television a liturgy. He understood that it could be a background while doing something else. A total paradigm shift, as if people were minding their own business during Mass.”
You worked together.
“I’ve known him since he did impersonations in high school, Bruno Voglino discovered him, then Guglielmi recognized his potential.” In 1992 we hosted “Porca Miseria” with Patrizio Roversi. Pure innovation. A complete fiasco.
Are reviews everything?
“The numbers are a condemnation. I remember that behind Costanzo’s stage was the author Alberto Silvestri – the father of the musician Daniele – who checked the data in real time: if a guest did not work, he signaled to Maurizio and the unfortunate man ended up forgetting the whole episode. ».
Luciana Littizzetto?
“I saw her at a final performance by the Turin theater companies. Everyone was there declaiming Pirandello, she – who was a literature teacher at a suburban school – sat on the chair and said “Fuck Sabri”. The theater collapsed.
The greatest talent you’ve ever met?
“Nanni Loy, pure genius. We made Secret Mirror, the first Italian version of the Candid camera. We shot an episode on a train, I was dressed as a conductor. But by law it is not allowed to wear uniforms that are identical to real uniforms. That’s why we replaced the acronym “FS” with “FZ” on the lapel. I asked Nanni: “What if someone notices?” To him: “Answer that it is Zambia Railways.”
Did it work?
“Two people asked me that and they seemed happy with the answer.”
He was also an actor.
«I started with Comencini, but I have always been a “tench”, as these invisible parts like bottom fish are called: the chief doctor, the notary… But also twenty-four episodes of “Inspector Manara”, in which I played Agent Quattroni have. Once we were filming an episode in Capalbio and I met Alberto Asor Rosa: he knew me and saw me in a shock uniform.
And he was a writer until his last work, “Fuori Programma – My Memoirs from Rai” (Manni).
“I wrote a lot, including Turin, Lungodora Napoli, which became the film Libero Burro, Castellitto’s first film as a director. They presented it in Venice and didn’t invite me. I managed to sneak in and found that it had nothing to do with the book but was full of meaningless scenes. I went to Castellitto: “But look, I don’t care, do whatever you want.” I’m not Bassani, who removed his signature from “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis”. And it was from De Sica!».
What are you afraid of?
“To disappear, I disappear into the memory of many.” Now they confuse me with others: some call me Gambacorta, some Barbagallo. But those who make television are eternal, right?