Television Presenters

"My mother revealed what they found so extraordinary about my belly button: "They like it because it's a Bolognese belly button.""

"I have always hated labels and have never made distinctions between straight and gay people. For me, there is only the person, and I think that every individual should have the same rights."

"(About Mina) When I was asked to celebrate her birthday, I thought about the value of the present and the past, and I realised that the imperfect or recent past tenses are not suitable for her. The right tense is the present indicative."

"Interviewer: Are you in favour of adoption for same-sex couples? Venier: Of course! I really can't understand why there are so many preconceptions. There's a lot of talk about it, but no one understands that behind this issue there is only one word: love, and it's all simpler than it seems. When I talk to friends and colleagues, I always ask, 'Do you really think a child is better off in an orphanage than with two people ready to give them lots of love?"

"Something strange happens: I feel closer to my deceased parents, I think about them intensely while I wait for her [referring to his daughter], as if I were finally able to see things from their perspective. It's a new position for me. It's too late to pay tribute to them, so I'll try to make up for it by being a good father and scholar. [1]"

"I hope to live in a country where no one has to declare anything anymore. Love exists, period. I would like to get to that point, where no one has to say what their sexual orientation is anymore. We all love, that's it."

"For me, the arrival of my daughter was a burst of enthusiasm and death. We will have a condensed time. I will talk to her from day one. I don't want her to find out who her father was after I'm gone. Even now, I try to capture every moment. I write. I take photographs."

"My father has always had a music and record shop, my mother is a biologist and works in food hygiene."

"I continue to live as simply as before. I still feel a bit like a daughter of La Califfa, the nickname given to me by Bevilacqua himself when I told him that my parents went to see his film on their first date."

"It's not that I cook a lot... I mostly just eat. In fact, a man can win me over with food. I still adore my mum's lasagne. Lasagne makes me feel at home..."

"(About Cardinaletti's reaction when she was offered the job of presenting La Domenica Sportiva) What did I do when I found out? I organised a conference call with my parents and my brothers, Michelangelo and Raffaello, who live in Canada and Perugia. I felt perplexed and excited. And scared, of course."

"I am grateful to my parents for letting me travel. I went to Thailand when I was little. And every year I treat myself to a Thelma & Louise-style holiday with my mum. The best one was in Oman."

"My favourite musical style is that of Armando Trovajoli, I would listen to it at every moment of my life. I follow the latest trap music with curiosity. But in the end, I always prefer Celentano, Battisti, Ivan Graziani, Tenco. De André, Mina and Dalla are the absolute podium; without them, my life would have been infinitely more miserable. But I also spent my entire adolescence in the myth of Leonardo DiCaprio."

"Interviewer: What do you think when I say the word "tomorrow"? Cardinaletti: It's a bit like saying ‘what's around the corner’, to quote a master. I've often thought about it: around the corner for me there's a restaurant. Tomorrow, maybe a new adventure."

"Mina was not, but she is. Mina did not “leave a mark”, but she leaves one every day. [4]"

"Interviewer: If your son had ever said to you, “Mum, I'm gay”, how would you have reacted? Venier: The truth? I would have loved it. I have size 41 feet and instead of giving my shoes to my trans friends, I would have lent them to him, just for fun."

"I'm glad I didn't get big-headed, I have a lot of self-irony. You have to be at peace with yourself to do this job."

"I would like to know why I, raised by a single mother, couldn't have a child as a single woman! I even thought about becoming Spanish."

"Gay Pride has a political agenda, but it's still a party. A big party. ... As a party animal like me, how could I not like an event like that? I have a blast. I saw my first one many years ago in New York, in 1985 if I'm not mistaken. I was with Jerry Calà. As soon as I saw it, I was immediately fascinated by all the colour."

"(About the reason why the homosexual audience likes her) Because, deep down, I am also very gay. Not sexually speaking, of course, but in an introspective way, there is a humanity that truly unites us. It sounds cliché, I know, but all my closest friends, since before anyone suspected anything, are gay."

"Siempre voto comunista."

"(About football) It's the belly of the country. There are all kinds of footballers, I don't see them as angels or demons, but as professionals who believe in their dreams."

"There are many [gay] young people who write to me, who have great difficulties because sometimes their parents do not accept this. I think this can help some parents understand that a child should always be loved and respected."

"Raffaella Carrà was one of the symbols of Italian television, perhaps its most beloved personality. She will be missed by millions of viewers who loved her for her style and by all those who, like me, had the opportunity to know her and work with her. I loved her very much. With her programmes, she was able to speak to very different generations, having the ability to always keep up with the times and never resorting to vulgarity."

"I will die without knowing. On my tombstone, I will write: ‘Why did gay people like me so much?’[3]"

"When I was a child, I always spent my holidays in Senigallia, where we moved in the summer. I have vivid memories of that time. My paternal grandmother, the loudspeaker that started broadcasting at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., which was the signal for us children that we could go swimming, and evening walks along the seafront. It was a holiday resort, not a holiday. It was a time of great freedom."

"My breasts? You're exaggerating, they've always been large. Then, when I became a mother early on, they exploded."

"(About Alida Chelli) She was ill, she fought and suffered a great deal: she no longer liked herself, she didn't want to be seen, I only heard from her on the phone, who knows, perhaps in the end death was a liberation. However, Simone was by her side, in love with his mother."

"(About Alida Chelli) She rose to fame singing in a film by Pietro Germi, Un maledetto imbroglio, a song written by her father Carlo Rustichelli. The song was called Sinnò me moro and was a huge hit. She was a talented singer and dancer. She was absolutely the greatest Rosetta in Rugantino. However, she was always unsure of her abilities. Everyone wanted her, but she turned down the parts."

"Our land has suffered much moral and material devastation. Even nature has sometimes raged against our land through earthquakes. Yet what has remained intact? An infinite beauty, unique in the world, has remained. Just travel around our Sicily, the coasts, the interior of Sicily, to discover a beauty that our ancestors, our forefathers, have left us as a legacy, perhaps confident that we would respect this nature, that we would exalt it... which we have not done. This land, without a future, is dead, finished, gone, and young people will find nothing but rubble and devastation. “My bitter land”, bitter... and beautiful. Beauty will prevail, I am sure. Beauty will triumph."

"Me and Bruno Vespa, who co-hosted with me, were awarded the “'TeleRatto 2011”' prize for worst television duo. We really deserved it. There was no worse duo than us."

"Sicily needs a cultural revolution. It has top-level professionals, teachers, doctors and architects, but they don't get their hands dirty with politics and have delegated it to these professional politicians."

"An important woman and exceptional artist, Alida Chelli, actress, singer, dancer, sensational artist, who,"

"(About Television) It's poorly produced. The quality is poor. It works better to put 10 people in a house in front of twenty fixed cameras and see what happens. Or to explode quiz mania, four idiotic questions that make people at home feel intelligent."

"(About the 1999 Sanremo Festival) The record companies have offered nothing this year. If it is to be a festival for everyone, for ordinary people, then the headmistress must present Battiato and Fossati. Because if the headmistress announces Gatto Panceri, then we are faced with nothing presenting nothing. This game is also the result of years and years of television made in the name of “specific incompetence”. [...] The offspring of those programmes [...] where people play at being out of tune. And of all the other dozens of programmes full of “common people”."

"Interviewer: “You don't like Fazio's television”? Baudo: It's a winning formula. But, let's be honest, it's just constant amazement at everything."

"(About the Pooh) Eternally dedicated to success."

"Yes, I think the audience has changed: in fact, a soap opera filmed in three rooms like “Il medico di famiglia” has a 35 per cent share. Once upon a time, big dramas were made to achieve these results."

"I must thank Silvio Berlusconi who was a man of great sensitivity, as he perfectly understood my state of mind: those who portray him as a ruthless tough guy are lying, he is a very humane person who understands everything."

"Mino was fortunate because he got what he wanted out of life, going from anonymity in the southern provinces to the most important stages in the world of entertainment, where he became a leading figure in his own right."

"(About the 1999 Sanremo Festival) I really don't understand all this enthusiasm. [...] It's all the same. [...] The only difference is the attitude of Fazio and his team: it's almost as if they're apologising for holding the festival. But that's not how you put on a show. Sinatra didn't sing while apologising, circus acrobats aren't ashamed. Interviewer: “The Sanremo circus had ended up in a bad crisis, though...” Baudo: I'm not questioning Fazio's formula, he's good, it works and you can see that. The problem is the songs. He doesn't even announce them anymore, he doesn't even touch the singers. As if they were made of contagious material. At this point, then, we need to dismantle everything definitively, resign ourselves to the idea that the festival is no longer a song contest that people will then buy and sing. And turn it into something else, an Isle of Wight. [...] at this point, the festival is over."

"A guest who made things difficult for me? Only one, Roberto Benigni, whom I love too much, though. The first time he came on the show, while they were filming us from the waist up, he gave me a sharp blow to the genitals with his hand that left me breathless."

"Mino Reitano was a great guy, stubborn, the classic immigrant with a great desire to succeed, exuberant, likeable."

"Sicilian beauties have an extra gear determined by historical factors. Mixed blood and the stratification of different dominations have mixed genes to such an extent that they have produced different combinations. [...] Contrary to tradition, we produce very tall women who are growing taller and taller, with physical characteristics ranging from raven-haired to blonde, with hazel, green and blue eyes, depending on whether Arab, Spanish or Norman characteristics predominate."

"The new is an obsession; there is no such thing as something new. Sometimes when you do something old, you don't do it as you used to, but you do it with a rhythm, a cadence and a language that are modern. Yesterday and today do not exist as artistic categories; there is only what is beautiful or ugly."

"If the new rule is that ordinary people become the protagonists, I'm ready to sit in the audience. [...] If heterodoxy has become orthodoxy, I will be the heretic. But I'm not worried, because in show business there is the piano and there is the forte. If, on the other hand, everything becomes the same, the Nobel Prize winner with the housewife, the astronaut with the accountant, after a while there is a chance that someone will say: but you know it was better when things were worse?"

"I present those gentlemen who were one step ahead of the others and made it. Not ordinary people. Loretta Goggi and Piero Chiambretti, Massimo Ranieri and Anna Galiena. Enough with Taricone, Cristina and Marina."

"With all these titles, Marchesi could have put on airs, but instead he was a very simple man, always ready to welcome young authors and constantly on the lookout for new talent. His motto was: speak up, even if you're talking rubbish, something will stick. (p. 124)"

"Roberto Vecchioni is a betrayed lover, which is why he said that phrase: his is an appeal for love, not an indictment of Sicily. There is beauty in Sicily; Sicily is beautiful. Of course, Vecchioni could have avoided generalising, but I am convinced that he already regrets having uttered those words. Long live the good and beautiful Sicily that exists."

"Maurizio Costanzo used a soft tone, asking even the most uncomfortable questions gently, but it was impossible to dodge his questions. Costanzo, as a secular confessor, did not pass judgement, but left everything to the viewer's discretion. (p. 134)"