Massimo Boldi

Massimo Boldi (Luino, 23 July 1945) is an Italian actor, comedian, film producer and TV presenter, also known by the nickname of Cipollino, from the name of Max Cipollino, one of his best-known comic characters.

For more than twenty years he has partnered with the Roman actor Christian De Sica, with whom he formed one of the most successful partnerships in Italian cinema, and is the founder of the Mari Film producer. In his television career he has also won 11 Telegatti.

Biography

First of the three children of Mario Tranquillo Boldi (originally from Tarcento in the province of Udine) and Carla Vitali. He has two brothers, Fabio (1949) and Claudio (1955). In 1956 he moved with his family to Milan. He enrolled in evening school and started working, first as a window dresser, then as a door-to-door salesman for La Motta.

A great Milan fan, in the seventies he met Marisa Selo (1957-2004), originally from Naples, who became his wife in 1973. From their union three daughters were born: Micaela (1974), Manuela (1981) and Marta (1990) ).

He becomes grandfather in 2002 of Massimo Federico, son of Micaela; in 2016 the second granddaughter Vittoria Marisa arrives and in 2019 Leonardo, both sons of Manuela. He was engaged to Irene Fornaciari (not to be confused with the daughter of the same name of the singer Zucchero) but the story ended one step away from the second marriage.

Beginnings as a drummer (1963-1974)

He made his debut in the show as a drummer starting very young with his friend Renato Vignocchi with whom he formed the "Atlas" musical group in 1963, consisting of three guitars and a drums but the following year he had to leave the group due to family problems; his friend Renato continued with another drummer, Franco Longo, and later the singer Maurizio Arcieri was added to the new group: together they then founded New Dada.

Later he forms a musical group in Varese with his brother Fabio, I Mimitoki, with which he begins his career as a drummer; conducting the "Ciao Amici Club" at the Lido di Gavirate on Sunday afternoon, becoming the reference point for young people of the time; the group was joined by a young duo, "Betty Curtis' Twins".

He was then part of "The blue patrol", a group led by Claudio Lippi, then moving on to Ricky Gianco, Ricky Maiocchi, Al Bano also with Carmen Villani and finally the drummer of the Gino Paoli orchestra at Sergio Bernardini's Bussola and Casino di Levanto, then in 1972 he joined the group as singer Christian De Sica; Boldi was a drummer until the day he was hired by Gianni Bongiovanni at the Intras Derby Club, a local in Milan, after having participated in the 1974 edition of Canzonissima with Raffaella Carrà and Cochi and Renato.

The transition to acting / comedian career

Here he began his artistic career as a comedian and stand-up comedian. In the mid-seventies he recorded some 45s and 33s collaborating for the music with Enzo Jannacci; among his best known songs Zan zan le belle frogs (also recorded by Jannacci) and Oh oh oh, written by Faust'O. In 1968 he began to perform at the Derby Club, the temple of cabaret, where he began to accompany the protagonists of the evenings, the great authors and current and future comedians in the panorama of Italian entertainment.

IThe venue, born in 1959 from an idea of Gianni Bongiovanni and his wife Angela together with Enrico Intra as a temple of jazz, had already become, when it was known by the young Boldi, also the house of cabaret, also known as the Cantina del Buonumore della Nouvelle Vague Milanese.

He included among his artists names such as Enzo Jannacci, Cochi and Renato, Giorgio Gaber, Bruno Lauzi, Giorgio Faletti, Umberto Bindi, Gino Paoli, Paolo Villaggio, I Gufi, Walter Valdi, Gianfranco Funari, Felice Andreasi and Enrico Intra, co-founder of the restaurant with Bongiovanni. Under the guidance of Bongiovanni and led by Enzo Jannacci and Arturo Corso, Boldi was artistically reborn and became a comedian, discovering in himself a comic talent.

In the club, the now ex-drummer created characters who soon became popular and who, thanks to his appearances on local private televisions of those years, soon became public domain. He paired with Teo Teocoli both at the Derby Club and on television for several years.

Thanks to a private television of the time, based in Legnano, "Antennatre Lombardia", founded by Renzo Villa and Enzo Tortora, Massimo Boldi and Teo Teocoli gave life with their work as a couple to what would have been considered the "forerunner television "of the new generation of comedians on television of the time: I didn't know but I know; authors of the Zuzzurro e Gaspare program with Gino and Michele. The program aired every Wednesday evening from 20:30 to 24 under the direction of Beppe Recchia and took its title from a catchphrase by Boldi, which also appeared in a song written by him with his friends Enzo Jannacci and Paolo Beldì, Non I knew but I know ...... (But if I knew I said it ... !!!!!!)

Through Teocoli's improvisation, perhaps Boldi's most famous and beloved character was born in that program, "Max Cipollino", an odd conductor of a small private TV news program (Teleraccomando). Boldi answered the direction with the telephone placed on the desk and in the heat he broke the telephone, placing the receiver against the device. The idea of Cipollino's comic TG was born on the Derby Club stage as early as 1977. Boldi was inspired by a private broadcaster of the time (Teleradioreporter) where a real journalist, a certain Giovanni Cozzi, read news of little importance, all relating to the neighborhood from which it transmitted.

Just remember that previously, in the sixties, a parody of TG 1 was made by Walter Chiari and Alighiero Noschese but that of private TVs was made by Boldi first; so it was that after the great successes obtained in television shows, Boldi abandoned the sketch to devote himself to cinema.

In the 1988-1989 season Antonio Ricci conceived for Canale 5 to be broadcast after the real TG, an innovative satirical newscast live, Striscia la Notizie, a comedy program of the television station still on air. The original idea was deposited in the name of Massimo Boldi at the SIAE of Milan, with the title Il Telegiornale Privè with subsequent modifications, in the year 1977.

Boldi will later participate in numerous television programs on the main Italian national networks; he will found a group that later became very popular in the eighties, "I Repellenti" which with Enzo Jannacci and Beppe Viola gave life to the television drama The upholstery with Diego Abatantuono, Giorgio Faletti, Giorgio Porcaro, Guido Nicheli, Ernst Thole, Francesco Salvi and Mauro By Francesco. At Canzonissima on Rai Uno he will propose one of his most successful characters, "Mario Vigorone" and then move on to an innovative program directed by Romolo Siena: A tutto gag where Boldi plays the character of the Tuscan Chef, in the catchphrase of "Come dite voi a Milano?

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