the interview
Noon, December 30, 2022 – 11:05
The actor and director, crowned comedy king on Capri, talks about himself: his musical debut at the age of 14 with Pick Up, then the group with Smaila, Nini Salerno and Oppini and his breakthrough with the light cinema. The dramatic role in Ferreri’s film was my revenge on the critics
by Antonio Fiore
Christmas break but with a taste of the sea: Jerry Cal just celebrated winning the 27th edition of Capri, Hollywood Festival’s King of Comedy awards with a crowded daytime one-man show at Santa Sofia Square in Anacapri”. While in February the shooting will start on a film whose director and protagonist were all shot in Naples, Monte di Procida and Ischia with production (Vargo Film) and all cast from Naples: the title and the names of the other actors are top secret, It is known only the whimsically funny story of the kidnapping of a movie star who suspects that the abductee is Cal. And to think that I’m a non-professor of Greek and Latin, the actor doesn’t joke too much in many “very cool” films, recalling his classical studies at the Maffei Gymnasium in Verona and his enrollment in the university’s faculty of antiquity Literature in Bologna. “But I quit the first year. I had already understood that my path was different…”. Quite a long way, because in 2021 they celebrated their first “50 years of lust” in a sold-out arena in Verona and today at the age of 71 they also became king. Calogero Cal from Catania, who grew up in Milan and then in Verona because the father follows first interpreter for the English national airline, then employee and finally manager of the information office of the Italian railways, he is as happy as Easter, even though Christmas is just over.
Unlike lust: double lust. Now Capri, first the arena. And who forgets that wonderful evening of July 20th: me on stage with all my lifelong friends and colleagues, Ezio Greggio, Massimo Boldi, J-Ax, Fabio Testi, Gigliola Cinquetti, Katia Ricciarelli, of course my ex-wife Mara Venier… but also many other greats of music such as Fausto Leali, Maurizio Vandelli from Equipe 84, Shel Shapiro from the Rokes. But how, I wondered in disbelief, were these the idols I admired as a child following the cantagiro, and now they are here to celebrate with me!.
Also because, in addition to classical studies, it was not acting but music that was his destiny.
I was born modestly as a bass player in the youngest beat group in Verona – but maybe in Italy – in the 60s, Pick Up, average age 14 years. But the electrocution for the scene came shortly after, when I entered high school amateur theater: we did little shows alternating gospel, spirituals, songs by De Andr with skits where we even made fun of the teachers . And I noticed that the audience laughed a lot more at my jokes than at the others: I understood that this was my true calling. So I left Studio 24 (that was the name of the amateur theater group) and joined a group of only four because there were three other schoolmates with me, Umberto Smaila, Nini Salerno and Franco Oppini. We didn’t know it yet, but I Gatti di Vicolo Miracoli was born.
A homage to a narrow alley in Verona I think.
Yes, but a very strange alley, because on one side of this alley was a brothel and opposite the tax office. Basically you both came out in your underwear.
The heroic years of cabaret, the success at the Derby Club in Milan side by side with giants like Cochi and Renato, Jannacci, Villaggio. And then in Rome the meeting with the cinema.
Quite a fun encounter: a person who had taken a liking to us referred us to the director Mino Guerrini, the guy on the Colonel Buttiglione series, who called us for a cameo appearance in the film he was making, actually a Buttiglione film . But it wasn’t until after filming that we found out we’d been cast because the rest of the cast were on strike: until we were nearly lynched. Then came our “real” films: “Arrivano i Gatti” and “A Bestial Holiday”, a film by Vanzina very progressive for its time: in fact RaiTre, a very intellectual network, broadcasts it from time to time .
Yet it was cinema that caused his departure from the cats. How are you?
In fact, all the blame lies with my mentor: Bud Spencer.
What do you mean?
I made a movie with him, a dream for me, unnoticed by the other cats. In the evenings I played gigs with them and the next morning I turned up on the set exhausted. One day Bud was waiting for me with his arms crossed in the typical Bud Spencer pose. “No, that’s not right, I see you’re struggling. You have to make a choice: either the evenings or the cinema”. I decided.
And the first success as the absolute protagonist came with “I’m going to live alone” by Marco Risi. And then the triumphs at the box office with the Vanzina, the Vacanze dovunque, the Yuppies. But in the middle of the party, she leaves everyone and goes to live, or rather, to shoot a movie in Norway.
So unpopular with critics, these 1980s titles are actually a very clear and faithful photograph of Italy of those years, albeit obviously exaggerated. Not to mention that movies like “Sapore di mare” suddenly revitalized Italian music of the 60’s and started a never-ending revival that actually lasts to this day. Every time he meets me, Edoardo Vianello thanks me again. And then we also pushed the music of the 80s with “Vacanze di Natale”: my arrival in Cortina with the notes of “I like Chopin” became a myth. Not to mention “Maracaibo”: everyone thinks I got rich with the rights to this song. But not mine, Lu Colombos! But we talked about Norway: I chose this film “Sottozero” because it felt like I had left one group, the Cats, to join another, the carefree, free-spirited cinecomedy. Perhaps making a mistake and certainly forgoing much higher salaries, I also wanted to compete as a dramatic actor. So in 1987 I enthusiastically agreed to move to an oil rig in the middle of nowhere for this film by Rodolfo Sonego, Alberto Sordi’s legendary screenwriter. But director Gian Luigi Polidoro respected even the script’s commas so much that every time I made something up on set that wasn’t in the script, Polidoro would give the stop sign and run to call Sonego to see if I could could These minimal “variations” could or could not: On Polidoro’s tenth phone call, in which the author answered him “But let him do it!” Sonego called producer Bonivento to get him a ticket to Norway, and he did joined me. I’m the only actor who had an ad personam screenwriter on set.
And five years later, another call came, that of Marco Ferreri.
With his Romanized Milanese accent he said to me “Ue’, how dramatic are you?”. I immediately replied “Bravissimo, Maestro”. And he: “Then make a movie with me,” and threw it down. I, who was driving (it was the era of the first cell phones, the big ones like this one), nearly veered off the road so moved. However, I then called a friend who knew him and who confirmed to me that it was Ferreri himself who had called me and that it was therefore no joke. Thus began the adventure of Diary of a Vice. This film, in which I played a desperate sex addict, was my revenge on our local critics who wanted me to win Best Actor at the Berlin Film Festival. Except then, when I went back to doing the usual “short films,” I got pinched badly again. But the best memory remains the response of Marco Ferreri, who, when asked by journalists why he chose comedian Cal for such an intense role, blurted out: “I chose him because comedians are the best dramatic actors”. In the words of Jerry: Got it?!
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December 30, 2022 | 11:05
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