Mara Maionchi, you find yourself on this page even though you were born in Bologna.
‘More than a ‘grand Lombard’ I am a ‘grand bastard’: mother from Como, father from Tuscany, a boy in Bologna. But then Milan».
It was 1961.
‘The year I decided to live here and become a Milanese. I looked for many things in this city, I was an employee. In Bologna for an international shipping company, here they brought me straight to Sipcam, a company that sells fungicides. I organized the promotions, I kept the accounts».
And then?
“I read the Corriere della Sera every day. There were job postings, which was cool because they worked, they put you in touch with the companies you were looking for. Ariston Records, Alfredo Rossi’s record company, was looking for an employee to mediate the artists. They took me, I started working with the big names. Ornella Vanoni, Mino Reitano».
The start in music. You have also worked for Ricordi and Fonit Cetra, among others. A record career that looked promising back then in Milan?
‘Milan was the capital of discography, not only because there were labels, but also because the music lived from the theatre, which in turn lived from the publishing industry. Today you can listen to artists in many ways, but back then you had to place them, find spaces for them. Also in promotion. And that’s when the problems started: Mina only wanted the covers, otherwise she would get sad, Lucio Battisti started playing at nine in the morning until she found the right chord and before that you couldn’t talk to him».
When he and Mogol formed Number 1, she went with them.
‘And I took Finardi with me too, just to say the least. Lucio Battisti was one of the people who knocked me out when we first met. There was something complex and simple at the same time. I didn’t always understand talent. For example, I didn’t understand The Doll by Patty Pravo right away, I had to listen to it again. But Nannini no, when I heard her play for the first time I was touched”.
How was Gianna in the beginning?
“A volcano, an incredible voice. Once we had a heated argument, I threw a punch on the table».
An irascible Milanese, isn’t he?
“I’m someone who doesn’t say anything even if it’s over five minutes later. They scold me in the family for swearing, but what can I do if I lose my temper? And sometimes the singers make you lose your composure».
An example?
“The other day. Auditioning for X-Factor, not for singers but for me because Giorgio Gori had just called me for testing. A girl comes along, very young and also very good, but she tells us that she sang Janis Joplin, although she’s convinced none of us on the judges knew who she was. I let her finish, then a shampoo came off which she flipped. But how dare you say that we record companies are ignorant?”
And how did it end?
“Gori said to me: Mara, the judge’s post is yours.”
Where were you on December 12, 1969?
‘Not far from Piazza Fontana, in the headquarters of Number 1. Lucio Battisti, I and Mogol’s father were in the office when we heard a roar. We went down to check and were met with smoke, crowds and screams. what years. The record companies were almost all at the center and back then it was an adventure to go home every night: strikes, protests».
Let’s come to June 26, 1976: The Parco Lambro Festival develops into a violent protest against the organizers. was she there
‘Sure, and I can say I was scared. Today it is difficult to explain to these young people, but back then they were really afraid to leave the house. If they didn’t immediately identify you as “one of them”, there was trouble».
have you ever taken drugs
«Don’t I seem pretty out of myself already?»
Not even a rod?
“Not even that, also because I’m afraid of aspirin too. I’ve had artists doing hard drugs, I’ve seen what’s happening and that’s enough to keep me out.”
In addition to her, her friend Ornella Vanoni also lived in Milan.
“She handed me the dresses: we were the same size, and when she came across a dress that she only wore for a night or two, she gave it to me. I was so elegant.’
Did Alberto Salerno, your husband, arrive in the early 1970s?
We were friends, I was engaged to another man and he was dating his girlfriend at the time. Then we got “engaged”, but no big deal. One day a friend hands me cards and says to me “Mara, you’re getting married this year”. It was 1976 and I saw Alberto for coffee at most once a week. I said “come on”. Well, this year we got married. Don’t ask me how you can stay together for 46 years, with two daughters and three grandchildren, because I really don’t know.”
But I ask her if she throws tantrums with him too.
“Here! But he screams too, eh. When he said that, I had my doubts because I’m ten years older. I didn’t want to act as a training ship. But my mother fixed everything by telling me: “But if you marry an old woman, that’s her problem, not yours”».
She shot “Those good girls” with Orietta Berti and Sandra Milo. What do you like about them both?
“Berti makes me laugh because she’s a little detail that washes everything in the evening and then comes up with clever irony. Milo has the same passions as a girl: at 90, she’s still waiting for her prince charming. And I didn’t say he wanted sex, I said he was looking for love. Got it darling? I get tired just thinking about it».
There was “LOL Xmas Special”: What makes Mara Maionchi laugh?
“I have perfected a technique to avoid laughing, but there is no way I am laughing anyway. Forbidding laughter is an absurd sin. I’ve been treated for two breast cancers, I have daughters and grandchildren, a husband who has been by my side all these years, a second life on TV I never expected, lots of friends and lots of memories: why shouldn’t I today do allow me the luxury of laughing in peace and saying a swear word?”.