The actor: «Colpo Grosso? I was surprised by so much success ». “Songs? In the days of the Cats I was doing pretty well. I was aiming for the piano, Neil Diamond’s «September morn» was perfect, then two quotes from Calvino and it was done .. ».
Like on that New York night in the late nineties that “in a crowded Downtown Cipriani in Manhattan, with Jennifer Lopez and Puff Daddy at two tables from me, I sang a mighty” at dawn I will win, I will win, vin-cee-ròoo“I was not even Pavarotti and with the acute I almost cracked the crystal glasses”. And it was only the beginning of the improvised show, without orchestra but with the accompaniment of forks and knives tapped on the bottles of champagne. “Half an hour and they all sang the refrain of the umbrellas.”
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«But yes, what he does:“ For this year, don’t change, same beach, same sea ”. Also the agent of the Rolling Stones and a spy of the Mossad, identical to those of the TV series, impassive, balding, tanned ».
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An Israeli 007 with a license to kill who joins the seaside choir as a vacationer on the bus?
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“Oh yes, well, I don’t think that neither he nor any of those present had really drunk soda, and in any case you can’t resist me, I have a demiurgic power, even, I know, at the eel-eating club, they leave cold and shortly after make the little trains “, says slyly Umberto Smaila, free forelock, mustache, goggle and maxi-cigar, 71 years and over fifty spent cheering up the next, from the hefty days of the Derby Club in Milan with the other three cats of Vicolo Miracoli, to the free-range and unhooked ones of the Cin Cin di Colpo Grosso girls, to the joyful summer evenings of piano bars in Sardinia or on the Red Sea or on cruise ships, background music for love, spite and sentimental or political entanglements. And in the middle 33 soundtracks: «The first for“ The beast with the machine gun ”, a very violent film with Helmut Berger, not even a B movie, a Z. But Quentin Tarantino took 6 minutes for“ Jackie Brown ”. Double deal: I’m in the credits and they paid me two thousand dollars ».
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At 10, seriously serious, he played Chopin.
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«In the third grade the teacher called my parents to tell them about my artistic aptitude. I was enrolled in the diction and acting course and in the piano and solfeggio course. The classic grandson who was put on the chair to recite poems to relatives. At school I was the top of the class, a big kid with a blue bow and a white collar. I always took ten, then I got worse ».
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«He built railings and gates together with his brothers, the three Smaila who emigrated from Fiume, I watched him strike the iron with that cold and it made me sorry, for the chilblains he got two big hands so that when he stroked me he looked like a good bear. Former saxophonist, his name was Guerrino because he was born in 1915 ».
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At 18 he was walking around with his hair painted in silver.
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«At the end of the Sixties Verona was the Italian Liverpool, I was the keyboardist of Killjoys, and the owner of the club where we went to play – for free, of course – came up with this gimmick to distinguish us from another band with green hair. I sprayed on my head a silver laccaccia bought from the hardware store and crossed the city in Lambretta, unfortunately without a helmet because it was not used, feeling ashamed like a thief ».
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In 1971 the Cats landed at the legendary Derby.
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“Ninì Salerno and Franco Oppini were in class with me at the classical high school Scipione Maffei, Jerry Calà, one year younger, we fished out him later, when I was already studying Law at the university, carefully choosing all the easier exams – me I stopped at fifteen – but first we passed through Rome. They were supposed to hire us for a series of commercials on road education from the Ministry of Transport. We showed up at the home of the Rai officials to do the auditions in black tights, like I Gufi, nothing came of it. The turning point came with Cino Tortorella ».
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“He. He invited us to his villa in Milan to sing some songs, then he took us first to eat – blessed be it – and then to the Derby. We were literally thrown on stage, people had fun. The owner paid us 5,000 lire each. “Now write something new and it will be 10 thousand”. We stayed two months locked in the house ».
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It immediately went great.
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«Unrepeatable moments, with Paolo Villaggio, Enzo Jannacci, Cochi and Renato, monsters of skill. We were the youngest, mum’s chariots ».
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Abatantuono was your lighting technician.
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“He must have been seventeen and didn’t want to study anymore. We had only one spotlight, his main task was to press a button, tick, on and tick, off. He would also have been our driver, but he never made up his mind to get his license, so I drove, and Diego was sitting next to me, because we were the biggest, the other three squashed into the back seat of the junk on duty. It was Jerry who made the purchase, always at bargain prices, so he regularly melted the engine. ‘
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The success on TV with “Non stop”, Raiuno’s cult program from 1977 to ’79.
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«Again it was thanks to Mago Zurlì. We lived in a kind of artists’ town in via Venini, in Milan. Cino called us as guests in his program for children, where we were noticed by the agents of Pippo Baudo, Gentile and Marangoni, who took us in the cast together with Massimo Troisi, Enzo Decaro and Lello Arena, the Giancattivi, Carlo Verdone, Gaspare and Zuzzurro, he used to shoot in Turin ».
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Directed by Enzo Trapani, who – said Jerry – always carried a gun in a holster under his armpit.
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“A habit, we never asked him why, unfortunately in the end he used it.”
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You sang: «You tried to say enough to increase the dough. And then wet the ragù with tears ». Carlo Verdone recalled: «The first to believe in me was Umberto Smaila. He was witty and cheered everyone up, he didn’t feel envy or jealousy. He was my antidepressant ».
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“She used to get together with Carlo, I tried on the pieces for him in the dressing room and advised him to focus on the long-haired man in a white tunic who distributes the leaflets of the Children of God.” You will become the new Deaf “. “The? What are you saying’?””
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In 1981 Jerry goes on his own and she takes it very badly. You haven’t talked to each other for years. Rancorous?
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“Fair. We swore some kind of eternal love, it was a stab. But then the same thing happened to me and there I realized that when the train passes, you get on it. After we cleared up and now we talk every day, on Easter Monday the four of us will meet at the usual restaurant in Verona ».
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In 1987 and for 4 seasons he scandalized Italy with the spicy striptease of the Cin Cin girls at Colpo Grosso on Italia 7.
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“I didn’t expect such a success, otherwise I would have signed another contract. We shot 800 episodes, it was sold all over the world and repeated for 18 consecutive years, time passed and I was always young, a miracle ».
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Feminists chased her with a pitchfork.
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«More than anything else the right-thinking people, the pigtails, the bourgeois were indignant, but they looked at him all right. I religiously keep the enthusiastic reviews of Beniamino Placido and Oreste Del Buono ».
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But is it true that Mikhail Gorbachev, father of Perestroika, was also a fan?
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“He had the videotapes sent to the hotel and I think if it was brought to the Kremlin, maybe they will be in Putin’s drawer.”
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While he was there, he never got capsized for a Cin Cin?
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“No, I was just looking, I was already married and a father. And then there were no great breaks to socialize, we turned four episodes a day, my feet hurt, I had those calluses … ».
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In the days of the Cats, the two trailers were you and Jerry.
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“We were quite successful. I was aiming for the piano … Neil Diamond’s “September morn” was infallible … plus a few cultured quotations from Calvino or Céline thrown there … which then often the courted woman asked perplexed: “And who would it be?”, But I flew over ” .
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Did you want to be thinner?
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“No, I don’t care about the weight. Now unfortunately I have to stay on a diet because I broke my femur twice, in a Turkish bath in the Bahamas and on a treadmill at Malpensa, so no wine, grappa and beer, no pasta, bread, cold cuts, I have to keep fit. .. so you can run smoothly to the restaurant ».
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Dazzling artistic encounters?
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“With Elton John, when I was doing” Buona Domenica “on Canale 5 with Gerry Scotti and Gabriella Carlucci, in 1993. He was my idol, I threw myself on my knees in front of him and he – divine – knelt with me, I keep the photo as a holy card of Padre Pio. And then James Brown, if you know what I mean. He sang “I feel good” just for me ».
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And finally came the era of his Smaila’s and the purple evenings of live music.
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«The first opened in 1991 in Poltu Quatu, in Sardinia. Then that of Sharm el Sheikh. Two remain, in Tropea and Porto Rotondo ».
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«For Francesco Totti and Ilary Blasi. Ditto for Simona Ventura and Stefano Bettarini. I remember an unsuspected dancer Niki Lauda. And Mike Tyson, who I convinced him to sing “My Way”. Except that at dinner he had eaten spaghetti with clams with a kilo of garlic, mamma mia, I was fainting. Clinging to his arm, I suffered in silence ».
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The duets with Silvio Berlusconi.
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“The first time at Poltu Quatu he gave an Aznavour-style recital. A few years ago he returned to Smaila’s in Porto Rotondo, bringing me three of his ties, the Neapolitan ones, as a gift ».
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And you performed with “The best years of our life” by Renato Zero.
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“Those who don’t know him don’t know what type he is. Extraordinary. I will be eternally grateful to him, he has given me work and as Milan president he is unforgettable. We don’t talk often, but he knows that, if necessary, I am there, and I know that he is there for me. Silvio is Silvio “
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April 12, 2022 (change April 13, 2022 | 00:24)
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