Maurizio Costanzo died. The journalist, TV presenter, author and screenwriter was 84 years old. He died in Rome on Friday.
«Bboooni, be bboooni». As the pace of argument increased, he resorted to the Roman proverb. How many times did Maurizio Costanzo say it in the 4405 episodes of his show that bore his name, which marked the evenings of 34 years of Italian television. They had shut it down in 2009, but there was nothing they could do about it, and they turned it back on in 2015. Now it’s really closed.
He alternated commitment and withdrawal, good and excellent programs with less good and less excellent ones, it was the shirt with the mustache in the Dino Erre Collofit advertisement, that of the P2 card number 1819 that the mafia tried to blast for his engagement first on the side, then in memory of Giovanni Falcone.
He was a journalist, but also a radio and television writer of songs (for Mina, Se telephoning, written with Ghigo De Chiara, a hit in 1966), a playwright, a screenwriter (for four films by Pupi Avati; for A Special Day with Sophia Loren and Mastroianni conducted by Scola in 1977).
Maurizio Costanzo was born in Rome on August 28, 1938 and started in 1956 as a reporter for Paese Sera. Another seven years to make his radio writing debut at Rai with Songs and Clouds, directed by Nunzio Filogamo. It’s small steps that lead him to television.
His was the first talk show on Italian television – a genre that would later become as indispensable as it was bloated: Bontà loro (Rai1, 1976 – 1978) was the first germ of a series of shows that reached their final heyday in 1982, when the Maurizio Costanzo show was performed from the Teatro Parioli in Rome.
If Bruno Vespa reproduced the Third Chamber of State on television, Costanzo invented the “media lounge” that starts on Rete4 and then expands on Canale 5, a place of passage and discussion, sometimes shrill, sometimes less, where it first happens list those who have never been invited, and vice versa: in the end there will be 32,800 guests. Ordinary people and established characters.
For many it was a stepping stone, those 15 minutes of fame that, if you managed to pierce the screen, could be repeated in the blink of an eye, becoming a success: this was the case for Enrico Brignano, Gioele Dix, Giobbe Covatta, Enzo Iacchetti, Dario Vergassola , David Riondino, Daniele Luttazzi, Alessandro Bergonzoni, Valerio Mastandrea, Ricky Memphis, Platinette, Giampiero Mughini, Vittorio Sgarbi… Much withdrawal but just as much commitment as the anti-mafia campaigns (he was a friend by Falcone, a guest on his programs), which led to an attack on May 14, 1993 (failed): a car with 90 kilos of TNT exploded in Via Fauro (near Parioli). A “medal” to be proud of. Minus history from a decade earlier.
In 1980 his name was included in the list of Freemasons associated with Licio Gelli. First he denies, then he cringes (“I was registered without my knowledge”), then he admits his connection to P2. An intense professional life. As much as the sentimental.
Serial marriage therapist, he married four times: in 1963 to Lori Sammartino, in 1973 to Flaminia Morandi (two children: Camilla, screenwriter of Rai, and Saverio, the director). Then a long life with Simona Izzo, but in 1987 he married Marta Flavi. The fourth time is the right one: in 1995 he hands over the ring to Maria De Filippi.
Parallel to the Costanzo Show, the journalist and presenter also leads Buona Domenica for various editions, initially (1985) for two with Corrado, most recently with Loredana Lecciso (2006), on a path that borders from national popularity to trash with too much space given away to dubious characters from reality shows. But it is also the thermometer for how viewers’ tastes have changed and how the success of his symbolic program is gradually dwindling: the audience is thinning out, the broadcast nights are getting thinner. It is the alleged epilogue that arrives on December 9, 2009: the final episode with some of the most representative guests in the history of the show: Raffaele Morelli, Afef, Katia Ricciarelli, Andrea Camilleri, Gino Strada and Enzo Iacchetti. He didn’t like Amarcords. He recalled that he could do a free program and that Berlusconi only got angry twice: when he invited Di Pietro but didn’t tell him directly, he let him know.
In an interview, he recalled two moments from this very long experience: “Beauty is the feeling you get when you do something concrete: like in 1994, when spectators collected money to rebuild a bridge that was destroyed by the floods in Piedmont was destroyed, or when they have helped set up emergency hospitals or fund land mine neutralization projects.
It was sad to say goodbye to Isabella Ceola, a woman who died of old age at the age of 28. She had appeared on the show three times, the fact that when they saw her on the street they no longer called her ET but “Costanzo’s” gave her strength”.
When his show is over, he understands that there is no longer any place for him at Mediaset, perhaps not even gratitude, and the much-abused Rai (not by him) offers him a television pension: “Bontà sua”, “Maurizio Costanzo Talk “, up to “It’s nightfall” with Enrico Vaime, a misunderstood program, a program of the past but out of time. After all, that’s how television is. He knew it. When the shadow seems to be falling, something suddenly turns again: The Costanzo show turns again on Rete4: it is the myth of the eternal return to the same point that is start and finish.