His biography says “born in Asti in 1937”. Like Paolo Conte.
“He claims we were classmates. To me, honestly, it seems like he was a year ahead. But I remember that he was a crazy organizer of football tournaments. He did everything, he even designed the uniforms.” At the bar with Bruno Gambarotta, under his house in Turin, where he has lived for almost seventy years. Crocetta neighborhood: «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 invited him for an opinion on everything: the magical Turin, the Turin of the seamstresses… Then he called us: “Have mercy, don’t call me anymore”. Nearby were Einaudi, Ginzburg, Bobbio, Arpino, Pitigrilli… Turin was the city of culture”.
This summer, however, it became the city of the Segre-Seymandi affair, the banker who publicly left his partner during the engagement party.
“We were dismayed. It was a tragic moment for us lovers of Turin: in an instant, a centuries-old tradition of Savoy confidentiality was buried. A conclave would be needed to rebuild the city’s reputation.”
Destiny would have wanted her to be a printer.
“Like my father. My mother, on the other hand, was a hairdresser: I grew up in her shop reading women’s books, “Novella”, “Confidenze”, “Grand Hotel”. Then I risked 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 service and profession alone.”
Many years later, “Do you leave it or double it?” she would lead it.
«At the end of the 1980s they called me to present the programme. I asked why they thought 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 an elocution course. Halfway through the course the teacher told me that we were finished. “Have I lost my accent?” I asked, “no, but he’s coming to me.” Nonetheless, in 1990 I did “Do or Double?” with Giancarlo Magalli. It was a resounding failure.”
At that time he was living off the sudden fame that came with “Fantastico 87”.
«In ’87 they entrusted “Fantastico” to Celentano who knew nothing about TV. So they placed me next to him to explain the mechanisms to him. Impossible: Adriano was totally resistant to everything, he just improvised. His proverbial silences? He just didn’t remember what to say. Then he made a sensational gaffe: while explaining a competition he said the name of one sponsor instead of another. The following week, to avoid getting bogged down, Adriano called me on stage to illustrate how the prize worked, and suddenly I became famous”.
After twenty-five years behind the scenes.
«I joined Rai in 1962, in Turin. Then I ended up in Rome writing. In the next room was the adorable Raffaele La Capria, in mine the Trieste author Renzo Rosso and Andrea Camilleri. But they were never there: in Rome, I discovered, the meetings were held at home. Thanks to La Capria I ended up with unforgettable evenings.”
Com’era Camilleri?
“He had a real talent for oral storytelling. I then met him many years later in Turin. I went to pick him up at the Hotel Roma. He was upset. Thinking of doing him a favor, the owner of the hotel had proposed that he sleep in the room where Pavese had committed suicide.”
Did you prefer the RAI of those years?
«I loved Angelo Guglielmi’s Rai 3, he was a true subverter. For me the Gruppo ’63 was a myth, Umberto Eco and Edoardo Sanguineti were great, but Guglielmi was the real culture bomber”.
Then Berlusconi arrived.
“How could you say no to someone like that? He sent Raffaella Carrà two hundred red roses a day, Pippo Baudo had him picked up by private plane. Rai didn’t even reimburse me for the bicycle. The older ones left state TV”.
A bit like what happened now with Fazio and Littizzetto.
“They did well, rather than feeling specially monitored… Fazio is a true innovator of TV, he will think of something effective. When he invented “Quelli che il calcio” it was a revolution: before then TV was a liturgy. He understood that it could be a background while you do 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 imitations in high school, Bruno Voglino discovered him, Guglielmi then understood his potential. In 1992 we hosted “Porca Miseria” with Patrizio Roversi. Pure innovation. A complete fiasco.”
Are ratings everything?
“The numbers are a condemnation. I remember that behind Costanzo’s stage there was its author Alberto Silvestri – the father of the musician Daniele – who checked the data in real time: if a guest didn’t work, he signaled to Maurizio and the unfortunate person ended up forgetting the whole episode. ».
Luciana Littizzetto?
«I saw her at an end-of-year performance of the Turin theater companies. Everyone was there declaiming Pirandello, she – who was a literature teacher in a suburban school – straddled the chair and said “Fuck Sabri”. She came down the theater.
The greatest talent you’ve met?
«Nanni Loy, pure genius. We made “Secret Mirror”, the first Italian version of the candid camera. We filmed an episode on a train, I was disguised as a conductor. But by law you cannot wear uniforms identical to the real ones, so on the lapel we replaced the acronym “FS” with “FZ”. I asked Nanni: “what if someone notices?” Him: “Answer that it means Zambia Railways”.
Did it work?
“Two people asked me this and they seemed satisfied with the answer.”
He was also an actor.
«I started with Comencini, but I have always been a “tench”, the name given to those invisible parts like bottom fish: the head physician, the notary… But also twenty-four episodes of “Inspector Manara”, in which I played Agent Quattroni. Once we were shooting an episode in Capalbio and I ran into Alberto Asor Rosa: he knew me, seeing me in a shocked uniform.”
And he was a writer, until his latest “Fuori Programma – My memoirs from Rai” (Manni).
«I wrote a lot, including “Turin, Lungodora Napoli” which became the film “Libero Burro”, Castellitto’s first as director. They presented it in Venice and didn’t invite me. I managed to sneak in and discovered that it had nothing to do with the book, it was full of meaningless scenes. I went to Castellitto: “But look, I don’t care, do as you like.” I’m not Bassani who removed his signature from “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis”. And it was by De Sica!».
What are you afraid of?
“To disappear, I am evaporating in the memory of many. Now they confuse me with others: some call me Gambacorta, some Barbagallo. But those who make television are eternal, right?
2023-09-12 19:43:22
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