Pippo Baudo

"(About the television programme “”Canzonissima“”) A programme that will have forty million viewers, i.e. all the Italians who will be stuck at home due to the restrictions adopted to deal with the energy crisis."

"(About the conclusion of the broadcasts of “”Canzonissima“”) They realised that they had to stop fighting battles at the expense of the singers and that, as a show, the singing competition was long 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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"(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."

"(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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"(About Matteo Salvini) He speaks properly, he's a rhetorician. But he doesn't convince me. He went to Sicily, to Mineo, where there are reception centres, and organised a Southern League when his League was founded as an anti-terrorist organisation. Suddenly, he embraced the southern cause. He did so to broaden his voter base. Then Salvini imagines a country blocked at its borders, which is no longer conceivable. Anyway, we Sicilians are used to being invaded. First Grillo arrived by swimming, and nothing changed. Now Salvini himself has arrived."

"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."

"I was having dinner at the Dollaro, a restaurant in Milan that cost 660 lire, the equivalent of one dollar. Instead of spaghetti, the waiter brought a guitar and started singing. ‘What a voice!’ I thought. It was Al Bano. During the day he worked at Breda, in the evening he waited tables. I told him to come to Rai the next morning."

"Interviewer: Which Sicilian writer do you love the most? Baudo: There are many, from Capuana to Verga, whose I Malavoglia I love very much. Then there is Pirandello, before whom one should kneel. And how can we forget Leonardo Sciascia? I knew him personally and we had a good friendship; I spent days with him. He was shy. I remember once I had to present an event in Mondello to award him and he asked me if there was a way to do it without doing it publicly. It was hard to convince him to go on stage! He was the one who discovered Tomasi di Lampedusa. He called Sellerio, a publishing house in Palermo, which published his book."

"Sicily is extraordinary, there is so much to see, it is a heritage of beauty and culture. When you arrive in Messina, a few kilometres away is Taormina, then Catania for its Baroque architecture, continue on to Syracuse, which in addition to its Baroque architecture has an important Greek history, it is sensational. Then Noto, Modica and Ragusa. The latter city has always had extraordinary beauty that was previously ignored, and thanks to Montalbano, the entire province of Ragusa has had a major revival from a tourist point of view. Then there is the western part, Mazara del Vallo, the island of Mozia. Then there is Agrigento with its temples, Segesta and then Palermo. In short, Sicily is worth visiting, it is extraordinary."

"I arrived in Rome in 1959. Italy was celebrating, there was an atmosphere of happiness and a zest for life. Those years were too good to be true. Italians were happy, every initiative was successful. Those years will never return. The Fiat 600 was the dream of Italians, in fact it was the consolation prize on “'Lascia o raddoppia?”' I owned a 500, bought in 36 instalments. I had just arrived in Rome, but I had to keep up appearances. I still don't know how I managed to get in: every time, I had to open the roof to do so."

"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."

"(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."

"(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."

"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."

"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?"

"(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."

"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."

"This job is only done when you are happy. I was out of work for a year and a half. I was waiting for a call from Rai. But Biagio Agnes was very angry with me. I even got mutual friends to intervene..."

"Viale Mazzini [the headquarters of Rai] is a kind of prison. Lots of cells facing long corridors. When I was in disgrace, no one came out of their cells to greet me. Now they all rush out jubilantly to welcome me. Audience ratings also affect friendships."

"Talking about Marcello Marchesi is exciting because rarely has a person been so rich in professional qualities, so capable of ranging across every field of entertainment. (p. 124)"

"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)"

"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)"