Lino Toffolo

Lino Toffolo Rossit, known simply as Lino Toffolo (Murano, December 30, 1934 - Venice, May 17, 2016), was an Italian actor, songwriter and comedian.

The origins

The son of a master glassmaker, he began in the 1950s to compose songs in the Venetian language [1] and revealed an inclination for music and acting since he was a boy. In 1959 he starred in a small part of the comedy Sior Tita Paron by Gino Rocca, during which he was noticed by two RAI producers who offered him to compose the theme song for a program of the regional newspaper (El listòn). In 1961 he married Antonia Ongaro (known as Carla), with whom he had the three children Anna, Luisa and Paolo.

He stands out as an actor in the Compagnia dei Delfini of Venice, of which he will be part from 1960 to 1965: during this period he also composes incidental music and his first songs in the Venetian language. He also records some radio programs produced by the RAI regional office in Venice.

At the Teatro La Fenice in Venice in 1964 he performed the musical accompaniment of the show Conversations and Readings for the International Prose Theatre Festival.

Cabaret and songwriting

In 1963 he made his debut at the well-known Milanese club Derby (Intra's Derby Club), alongside other personalities who, like him, will begin the climb to fame right there, such as Enzo Jannacci, Bruno Lauzi, Franco Nebbia and later Cochi and Renato, Felice Andreasi and others; he plays the characteristic character of the Venetian drunkard, also proposing some songs of his composition, almost all written in dialect. In this period he made his debut on the recording market, having obtained a contract with Fonit Cetra, with the single 'Na brombola impissada / No la vogio no, published in 1963 and followed shortly after by L'briago / Vin nero.

Also in 1963 he participated in the TV show Grand Prix in the Veneto team (with Renato Bruson). In 1964, during the TV show This and that, he proposed an interpretation of the anarchist song Addio a Lugano together with Enzo Jannacci, Giorgio Gaber, Silverio Pisu and Otello Profazio. In 1966 he made a tour in Canada, together with other folk exponents such as Gabriella Ferri, Otello Profazio and Caterina Bueno in a theatrical show directed by Aldo Trionfo.

In the same year he released his first album, Lino Toffolo; among the songs contained therein it is worth mentioning Gastu mai pensà, a poignant love song, which affects Enzo Jannacci very much, who translates it into Italian and two years later, with the title Have you thought ever, includes it in his album Vengo anch ' I. No, you don't. He then moved to the Italian RCA and recorded his most successful album, Oh Nina (come down from bass che te vogio ben), with which he also participated in the 1969 Cantagiro.

Another success of his, the following year, is Ah, work is beautiful, which is presented by Toffolo on various occasions during the television show It's Sunday, but without obligation, bringing with him (according to the text of the song) a wheelbarrow and a hammer; the song tackles, with an ironic slant, the theme of the hardness of manual work; it will be re-recorded by the singer-songwriter in 1980 in a new version. In 1971 his song Bel oselino is included in the soundtrack of the film La Betìa or in love, for every pleasure, it takes suffering, by Gianfranco De Bosio.

In autumn 1976 Toffolo achieved great success with Johnny Bassotto, a children's song written by Bruno Lauzi and Pippo Caruso. The song is the theme song of the Sunday program combined with the Italian Lottery (Preview of WHO?).

Following the success of the television theme Johnny Bassotto, Toffolo was asked to advertise the Santa Rosa jams, using the initials as a jingle and modifying the opening words "Who stole the jam?" in "Who Stole the Jam?". He then moves on to Numero Uno, the label founded by Mogol and Lucio Battisti, for which he publishes Centomila Why.

In 1980 Io di più was chosen as the theme song for Once Upon a Time in Man, a cartoon that aired in the 1980-1981 season, co-produced by Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and France; referring back to the theme of the transmission, the text of the passage traces the history of humanity. In the same year he recorded the theme song for another cartoon, Treasure Island, and Lancelot 008 for the homonymous television series. In 1984 he recorded a reinterpretation in Italian of Zuppa romana by Schrott nach 8, entitled Pasta and beans, obtaining a new moderate success. After a period of absence from music, he returned to record in 1999: the Acqua alta album, arranged by Maestro Alberto Baldan Bembo, contains some unreleased and new versions of his hits, such as Gastu mai pensà and I altarichetti.

The cinema

His debut in cinema took place in 1968, in a secondary role, in the film Chimera by Ettore Maria Fizzarotti, a "musicarello" centered on the love affairs of Gianni Morandi and Laura Efrikian.

Since then, and for a decade, he has starred in many successful films: noteworthy are his participations in Monicelli films (Brancaleone alle crciate, 1970), Festa Campanile (the diptych When women had a tail, 1970, and When women lost the tail, 1972; as well as Il blackbird, 1971, and L'emigrante, 1973), De Bosio (La Betìa or in love, for every pleasure, it takes suffering, 1971), Samperi (An eel of three hundred million, 1971; Blessed the rich, 1972; Venial sin, 1974; Sturmtruppen, 1976), Celentano (Yuppi du, 1975), Mogherini (Culastrisce nobile veneziano, 1976), Risi (White phones, 1976) and Pingitore (Scherzi da prete, 1978 ).

He returns to the cinema for the last time in Massimo Venier's Il giorno in più (2011), based on the novel of the same name by the protagonist Fabio Volo.

The television

Lino Toffolo's popularity also owes a lot to the small screen, where he began to appear towards the end of the sixties in entertainment programs, attending, among other things, alongside Alighiero Noschese in Canzonissima 1971.

In 1985 Toffolo was in the cast of Risatissima on Canale 5 and in 1986 of A fantastic tragic Friday, hosted by the actor Paolo Villaggio and many others, and broadcast on Rete 4. From 1987 to 1989 Lino Toffolo took the place of Claudio Lippi as host of the Canale 5 quiz game Tuttinfamiglia, produced by Margherita Caligiuri. In the 1989/1990 television season he supported Gino Rivieccio in the management of the quiz game Casa mia.

Subsequently he appears in the two series of God sees and provides (1996 and 1997) and in the fiction series directed by Luca Manfredi Excuse the disturbance (2009), All the fathers of Mary (2010) and The last pope king (2013), while in 2007 participates in the program We are working for us conducted by Cochi and Renato and in 2013, as a regular guest, in La vita in direct conducted by Mara Venier.

In the 90s he was a regular guest of the show Quelli che ... il calcio conducted by Fabio Fazio.

Theatre

In 1993 Lino Toffolo returns to tread the stage, interpreting the comedy Tonin bela grazia by Goldoni in the staging of the Teatro Stabile of Trieste, with which he obtains a flattering success that pushes him to try his hand at other genres, such as operetta, with Il bat by Johann Strauss in 1997, directed by Gianfranco De Bosio, and as Zanetto Pesamenole (Donna Pasqua) in Ralph Benatzky's Al Cavallino Bianco in 2002 directed by Gino Landi at the Teatro Verdi in Trieste.

She will also be the reciting voice in Sergei Prokofiev's Pierino e il lupo in 2000 (re-proposed again at the Malibran Theater in Venice in 2010), in Igor Stravinski's Histoire du soldat in 2002, which he also directs, and in Peer Gynt by Edvard Grieg at the PalaFenice at the Tronchetto in Venice.

He was also the author of some comedies, including Hot ice creams, Fisimat and Lei chi è, as well as the teacher of Carlo and Giorgio, an established Venetian cabaret duo.

The last years: his directorial debut and his death

In the first months of 2006 Lino Toffolo presented his independent film Nuvole di vetro, written, directed and performed by him, whose dialogues are entirely in the Venetian language. He made his debut in film directing with a work that has received the approval of a large part of the critics.

He was a collaborator of the newspaper Il Gazzettino for which he edited the weekly column DomenicaLino, through his page on Facebook.

On the evening of May 17, 2016, after having dinner in the company of family members, he died of a heart attack in his home in Murano at the age of 81. A few days earlier he had been hospitalized in Venice for the after-effects of a fall and a short time before he had had heart surgery.

The funeral is celebrated on the morning of May 20 in the Church of San Pietro Martire in Murano. Family members, many common people, colleagues and friends, including Renato Pozzetto, Ottavia Piccolo and Pino Donaggio, were present at the funeral. He is buried in the Murano cemetery.

External links

Lino Toffolo on Wikipedia

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