“Remembering Gianni Boncompagni: The Life, Work, and Unconventional Fatherhood of a TV Pioneer”

Gianni Boncompagniwhich has been gone for six years, invented Yellow Flag e High Rating, It’s not Rai and Amber Angiolini, Those of the night and Raffaella Carrà beans, wrote the tuca tuca and wrote Sad boy. But of himself he said: “I’m still waiting to do something to be remembered for.”

Barbara, the youngest of three daughters, TV author, is the only one who has followed in his footsteps. In the end, what invention would he, her father, want to go down in history for?
“Dad was self-congratulatory zero. When they wanted to interview him he said: how boring. Once, in his last months, he was in bed with a drip and I brought him a game: a light board on which to write sentences. I told him: write something important. He wrote: remember to forget. So what would he want to be remembered for? Perhaps, for the girlfriends».

At 80, she was thirty and was discussing the “long bench” and other young women ready to replace her.
‘He was a bit vain about that. He has had stories with Isabella Ferrari, Claudia Gerini and other very young people. But later, when these exes had to make important decisions, such as buying a house, they called him: he became like a father to them. He was also fatherly to those he only worked with. Over the years, many have told me that he always recommended studying. To us daughters, on the other hand, he always said the opposite: I wanted to go to university in Paris and he: but no, come with me, let’s make a plan».

In what else has he been an unconventional father?
‘When he separated, my sisters and I stayed with him. We were three to six years old. Dad had been a young beat and he was a thirtysomething starting a big career, but he brought us up with concentration. He could have put us in boarding school or sent us to our grandparents, instead, he did everything to keep us: he borrowed money from Mario Marenco to prove to the court that he could support us. After that, he’s been an anxious father. His sentence was: be careful, if you stumble, fall, hit your head and die ».

Mom, in all this?
“Swedish, daughter of one of the richest families in Stockholm, with a Downton Abbey-style life, she became a trade unionist, a feminist, a true intellectual. She had fallen in love with this Tuscan who made her laugh, but she didn’t find herself in the Italian family dimension. After her divorce, she remained in Rome, we always saw her».

And what relationship did you daughters have with your father’s girlfriends?
«The first was Raffaella CarrÃ, I was five years old, they have been together maybe a dozen years. They had met for an interview, at dawn, in a deserted, magical Piazza di Spagna. She is 25 years old, he already has three daughters. They fell in love artistically. She took home next to us. We girls stayed with the housekeeper, they went back and forth between the two apartments. I imagine this woman so orderly, precise, rational, grappling with our chaos. She and I hit it off right away, I was the little one, she called me “my little girl”, she said to me: don’t tell me that, you’ll make me cry».

Why? What did she tell her?
“You are wonderful. How nice that you are in my life!’

Who else came to the house?
«Renzo Arbore very often, with the Bracardi brothers, Marenco, the set designer Gaetano Castelli, the choreographer Gino Landi. And then Mita Medici, Patty Pravo…».

For Patty, her dad wrote Sad Boy, a hit.
“I remember when he composed melodies on the piano for Raffaella. When he wrote Happy Birthday, he used a phrase that he had said to me when a boyfriend left me: and if he leaves you, you know what to do, find someone more beautiful, he has no problems ».

Did you accompany him in the TV studios?
‘They were like another room in the house. As a child, I went to the Mille Luci rehearsals and to all Raffaella’s shows. Then, with dad directing and me conducting, we made Drim. First, he made me perfect my singing and dancing for months, every day, full time. I found myself between Franco and Ciccio, Roberto Benigni… And I was on Non è la Rai a lot: I dubbed the songs. In life, I sing jazz and many ask me: you’re crazy, why aren’t you a singer? But I have lived among people who only did extraordinary things and I understand what excellence is».

His father, however, prided himself on doing everything to a minimum. He said that, during Pronto Raffaella, he slept.
«Once, he woke up, saw Daniele Piombi and asked: why in these parts? He hadn’t realized that he had just been their guest. And Piombi: you’re usually witty. Dad got up at two in the afternoon, but Pronto Raffaella started at noon, so he arrived a second earlier. He sat down and started. So much so, the program had no content. However, shots, shots, lights were perfect. He liked to say that he packed the pneumatic vacuum».

He swore that his slogan was “soon and badly”.
«It was his way of saying that people who make TV don’t save lives. But in reality the poor souls who worked with him made them slave day and night. There is Chiambretti, Piero arrived at ten, he at three, with clogs, and said: I’m going to the bar».

Do you share the reading that it was your father who lowered the threshold of access to TV by opening the doors to reality TV and the talentless?
“He had his responsibility. When I dubbed the girls of Non è la Rai, he would look at Ambra or Viviana and say: ah… how does she playback! And me: What talent is lip-syncing? However, with Macao, he returned to talent: he discovered Sabrina Impacciatore, Lucia Ocone, Biagio Izzo, Ubaldo Pantani, Fabio Canino».

In the end, Ambra Angiolini was repeating her father’s words into the headset?
«Clear: he was 15 years old. But she was very intelligent, as can be seen from the career breakthroughs she had. I remember when she, harassed by the press, cried in the dressing room. Dad kept repeating: Amber is crying, Amber is crying. As if she were a Barbie or her remote-controlled toy… And I: Amber is crying, yes, because she is a human being».

Have you kept in touch with your exes?
“With Isabella, we were the same age. For a year, all three of us lived together in Rome: we studied together, we went to dance together. We are still like sisters. I still hear Claudia Gerini too. And Valentina, the last one, who was close to him until the end. They were no longer together, but papa said: maybe I’ll leave her. And I: What are you leaving yourself, dad?’

How was the disease?
‘Papa has become soft. He played with his nephews, joked with us sisters. Since he was a serial hoarder and he had bought a house only because it was close to Ikea, and only to furnish it, I told him: when you want, I’ll make you the funeral home at Ikea».

Did he know he was at the end?
‘You never know how much the patient knows or doesn’t know. We put some pretty young nurses next to him. We just did the castings. The time an elderly substitute arrived, rosary in hand, he said: you’re joking, aren’t you? And I swear we had to send her away.’