Claudia Mori - actress and singer

Film star who married pop icon Adriano Celentano

Claudia Mori is half of what was at one time
Italy's golden celebrity couple

The actress, singer and later television producer Claudia Mori, married for more than half a century to Italy’s all-time biggest-selling recording artist, Adriano Celentano, was born on this day in 1944 in Rome.

She and Celentano met in 1963 on the set of Uno strano tipo (A Strange Type) a comedy film in which they were both starring. The two were married the following year at the Church of San Francesco in Grosseto in Tuscany, having kept their intentions secret to avoid publicity.

Mori was only 20 when she and Celentano - six years her senior - were married but she had already made several films.

Born Claudia Moroni, she made her film debut in Raffaello Matarazzo’s romantic comedy Cerasella at the age of just 15 in 1959, featuring as the title character opposite Mario Girotti, the actor who would later change his name to Terence Hill and become famous as the parish priest Don Matteo in the long-running television series of the same name.

The following year she had a supporting part a laundry worker colleague of Alain Delon in Luchino Visconti’s Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers) and over the next two years played another supporting part in the Robert Aldrich’s biblical epic Sodom and Gomorrah, starring Stewart Granger and Pier Angeli, as well as co-starring as a beautiful princess in Giorgio Simonelli’s Ursus nella terra di fuoco (Ursus in the Land of Fire). 

A 15-year-old Mori on the beach at Vietri-sul-Mare with
co-star Mario Girotti during her movie debut in 1959

In 1964, she co-starred with her new husband in Super rapina a Milano (Super-robbery in Milan), the first film Celentano also directed.

At the same time, she was developing a singing career, releasing her first record - Non guardarmi (Don’t look at me) - in 1964.  Her career was boosted by teaming up with Celentano in a number of duets, notably with Chi non-lavora non-fa l'amore (Those who don't work don't make love), with which they won the 1970 Sanremo Festival.

In the 1970s, 80s and 90s, Mori alternated between acting and singing. More movie success came with Rugantino, L’emigrante (The Emigrant) and Culastrisce Nobile Veneziano (released in the United States as Lunatics and Lovers), in which she starred opposite Marcello Mastroianni. 

All were comedies, as was Yuppi Du, the 1975 movie in which she again starred with Celentano, who also directed the film. The English actress Charlotte Rampling was among her co-stars and the film was an Italian entry at the Cannes Film Festival.

Claudia Mori and Adriano Celentano
celebrate their 1970 Sanremo victory

During the same decade, Mori enjoyed her biggest solo recording success with Buonasera Dottore.  She became CEO of her husband’s record label, Clan Celentano, producing her husband's celebrated album of duets with Mina, Italy’s all-time biggest selling female artist, which sold more than two million copies.

Celentano himself - now 81 - can look back on a career in which he has sold in excess of 200 million records, well ahead of any other Italian recording artist.

More recently, Mori developed a television career. She was a judge on the Italian version of The X-Factor and her television production company Ciao ragazzi (Hello Boys) has turned out several successful mini-series of drama and drama-documentary films.

She and Celentano are still together, although they separated for a period in the 1980s following Celentano’s affair with another actress.  They had three children, Rosita, Giacomo and Rosalinda. Rosita is a television presenter, Rosalinda an actress.

Positano, with its dramatic cliffside setting, is one of
the jewels of the Amalfi Coast

Travel tip:

Claudia Mori’s debut movie Cerasella was filmed on location in Naples and on the Amalfi Coast, the 50km (31 miles) stretch of Campania coastline between the southern side of the Sorrentine Peninsula and Vietri-sul-Mare, the resort just outside Salerno. Notable for its steep cliffs and rocky inlets and coves, with a winding road that seems to cling to the cliff face, the area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site comprising a string of villages and towns, the most famous of which are Positano, Amalfi and Ravello. The town of Amalfi, which occupies a dramatic setting at the foot of the cliffs, attracts huge numbers of visitors each year. Its ninth-century Duomo dominates the town's central piazza, sitting at the top of a wide flight of steps.

Find accommodation in Amalfi with Booking.com

Galbiate, where Claudia Mori and Adriano Celentano have
a house, has views over Lago di Annone

Travel tip:

Mori and Celentano’s main home is in Galbiate, a small town in Lombardy about 50km (31 miles) northeast of Celentano’s home city of Milan and close to the small lakeside city of Lecco. Galbiate is close to Lago di Annone and Lago di Garlate, two small lakes to the south of Lake Como.  The area between the lakes includes the Natural Park of Monte Barro, which is the home of more than 1,000 varieties of plants in a climate of biodiversity probably unique in Lombardy. The area is also the habitat of birds of prey such as the the kestrel, buzzard, brown kite and peregrine falcon and the rare royal albanella.

Stay in Galbiate with Booking.com


More reading:

How Adriano Celentano became Italy's biggest selling pop star of all time

Terence Hill - from spaghetti westerns to parish priest

Luchino Visconti, the aristocrat of Italian cinema

Also on this day:

1602: The birth of Baroque painter Michelangelo Cerquozzi

1799: The death of Lazzaro Spallanzani, biologist who pioneered artificial insemination

1923: The birth of film director Franco Zeffirelli

(Picture credits: Positano by Glen MacLarty; Lago di Annone by Cantakukuruz; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Marco Mengoni - singer-songwriter

X-Factor victory was launchpad to stardom

Marco Mengoni won Italy's
The X-Factor in 2009

The singer-songwriter Marco Mengoni, who rose to fame after winning the Italian version of the TV talent show The X-Factor, was born on this day in 1988 in Ronciglione in northern Lazio.

Mengoni triumphed in the 2009 edition - the third series of X-Factor on the public service channel Rai Due before it was bought up by subscription channel Sky Italia - during which he unveiled what would be his debut single, Dove si vola, which he sang for the first time at the semi-final stage.

The single, an example of the sophisticated pop-rock style that would become Mengoni’s trademark,  reached number one in the Italian downloads chart while a seven-track extended play album of the same name sold 70,000 copies, peaking at nine in the Italian albums chart.

Mengoni’s performances on The X-Factor had received favourable comments from both Mina and Adriano Celentano, the all-time bestselling artists in Italian popular music history.

Marco Mengoni in a presentation video for his hit single
L'essenziale, his Sanremo winner and Eurovision entry

The prize for winning The X-Factor was a recording contract with a value of €300,000 and automatic selection for the 2010, Sanremo Music Festival 2010, in which he finished third with Credimi ancora. The single was included in Mengoni’s second EP, Re matto, which topped the Italian singles chart.

His first full-length solo album, Solo 2.0, went straight to number one in the Italian albums chart when it was released in September 2011.  Whereas he had previously sung mostly compositions written by others, the tracks on Solo 2.0 were almost all co-written by Mengoni.

After spending much of 2012 touring, Mengoni entered Sanremo again in 2013 and this time won, with L’essenziale, which he wrote in collaboration with Roberto Casalino and Francesco De Benedettis.

Mengoni at a press conference ahead of
his performance at the 2013 Eurovision

L’essenziale was the lead single from Mengoni's second studio album, #prontoacorrere, It debuted at number one on the FIMI Singles Chart and downloads exceeded 120,000. It was the top selling track of the year by an Italian artist.

The song was also selected as Italy’s entry for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden.  Mengoni finished seventh - well behind the winner, Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest (Only Teardrops) - but the song caught the imagine of viewers and gained him many new fans outside Italy.

Since then, Mengoni has released three more studio albums - Parole in circolo and Le cose che non ho in 2015 and, this autumn, Atlantico - plus a live album, Marco Mengoni Live, a 2016 double album that included five previously unreleased studio tracks.

Atlantico has been top of the Italian album chart for four weeks, giving Mengoni a Christmas number one.

Mengoni grew up in Ronciglione, which is about 60km (37 miles) north of Rome, near Lago di Vico. At the age of 14, while a design student at secondary school, he took singing lessons. He soon tasted the experience of singing before an audience after his teacher invited him to join a vocal quintet which performed in piano bars and clubs.

The cover of Mengoni's Le cose che no ho,
his third studio album

He embarked on a solo singing career at 16, assembling a group of backing musicians to perform in small clubs, mixing covers with his own songs. At 19 he moved to Rome to study languages at university. His big break in The X-Factor came a year later.

Among Mengoni’s other achievements, he was the first Italian artist to win Best European Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards - in 2010 and 2015 - and the first Italian artist to perform at the Billboard Film & TV Music Conference in Los Angeles, in 2013.

Today, Mengoni lives in Milan.  In 2019, he embarks on a 16-date European tour, between April and May, beginning with shows in Germany, Switzerland and France, following by 12 appearances in Italy.  On May 25 and 26 he is scheduled to perform at the Arena di Verona, the Roman amphitheatre that has become one of Italy’s most prestigious concert venues.

The quaint medieval area of Ronciglione,
Mengoni's home town in Lazio

Travel tip:

Ronciglione, known locally as Ronció, is a town about 20km (12 miles ) from Viterbo located in the Cimini mountains, on the southeast slope of the former volcano crater now housing Lake Vico.  The main sights include a well-preserved medieval centre, a castle originally built in the middle ages, with characteristic angle rounded towers, and a Baroque cathedral designed by Pietro da Cortona, rebuilt by Carlo Rainaldi between 1671 and 1695. The bell tower is from 1734. The cathedral houses a Tryptych of Christ by the Viterbese painter Gabriele di Francesco.  Ronciglione is known for its carnival and the Palio of the Manna, which features riderless horses competing for each of nine contrade (parishes).

The Arena di Verona is now a major venue for both
opera performances and music concerts

Travel tip:

The Arena di Verona in Piazza Bra is a wonderful surviving example of a first-century Roman amphitheatre, which has now become a famous location for large-scale, outdoor productions of opera each summer.  The arena was built in in AD 30 on a site which was then beyond the city walls. It could host more than 30,000 spectators in ancient times, double the capacity permitted today. It was thanks to the enthusiasm of the tenor Giovanni Zenatello and the impresario Ottone Rovato in the early part of the 20th century that operatic performances became the arena’s staple. They put on a staging of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida in August 1913, to mark the birth of Verdi 100 years before in 1813. Musical luminaries such as Puccini and Mascagni were in attendance and since then summer seasons of opera have been mounted continually at the arena, apart from during the war years.


More reading:

Why Adriano Celentano is Italy's all-time biggest-selling star

Mina - the Italian icon who defied convention

The enduring talent of Eros Ramazzotti

Also on this day:

Natale - Christmas Day

800: Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor

1874: The birth of soprano Lina Cavalieri


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Fred Buscaglione - singer and actor

Fifties sensation who died tragically young

Fred Buscaglione sports the 'gangster' look for
 which he was famous in the film I ladri (1959)

The singer and actor Fred Buscaglione, a nightclub singer who became huge star of the pop world in 1950s Italy, was born on this day in 1921 in Turin.

Buscaglione’s style - he portrayed himself tongue-in-cheek as a sharp-suited gangster with a taste for whiskey and women - caught the imagination of an Italian public desperate to be entertained after the austerity of Fascism, when all ‘foreign’ music was banned.

He formed a partnership with the writer Leo Chiosso after their first collaboration, on a song called Che bambola (What a Babe!), resulted in more than one million record sales, catapulting Buscaglione to fame.

They had several more hits, including Love in Portofino, which was covered by Andrea Bocelli in 2013 as the title track from an album.

Born Ferdinando Buscaglione, he was from a creative family. His father was a painter and his mother a piano teacher. They enrolled their son at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Turin at the age of 11 but by his teens Buscaglione had adopted jazz as his passion.

The songwriter Leo Chiosso collaborated with
Fred Buscaglione in his musical and movie career

His career as a singer and musician was going well and Chiosso was one of the friends he had made through his appearances in night clubs around Turin.  Their relationship was interrupted by the Second World War, which saw both taken prisoner. Chiosso was sent to Poland and Buscaglione to an American camp in Sardinia.

Although he was an enemy prisoner, his captors recognised his musical talent and he was allowed to play in the orchestra of an American radio station broadcasting from Cagliari. The experience gave him the chance to learn much about American music, particularly swing and the big band sound.

After the war, he made his way back to Turin, living in an apartment in Via Eusebio Bava in the Vanchiglia district a short distance from the centre of the city. He formed his own group, the Asternovas, and married a girl he met while on tour in Switzerland.

He and Chiosso became reacquainted, the latter having returned to Turin with memories of hearing Buscaglione performing on forces radio. It was Chiosso, an avid reader of American crime fiction, who encouraged him to develop his ‘gangster’ persona, for which he began sporting a Clark Gable mustache.

Buscaglione's wrecked Ford Thunderbird after the
collision in Rome that cost him his life

After Buscaglione became a popular nightclub performer, Chiosso arranged a date for them at a recording studio, after which Che bambola was released on a 78rpm shellac disc in 1956. With little publicity beyond word of mouth it sold more than one million copies.

Buscaglione made the most of his fame.  He had more hits from the pen of Leo Chiosso with such songs as Teresa non sparare (Theresa, Don't Shoot!), Love in Portofino and Whisky facile (Easy Whiskey), signed commercial advertising contracts and appeared in TV show and movies, including the 1960 comedy Noi duri (Tough Guys), which Chiosso scripted and which starred the Italian comic maestro Totò, as well as a beautiful young Italian actress, Scilla Gabel, with whom Buscaglione was romantically linked.

He appeared to have the world at his feet but tragedy struck in the early hours of February 3, 1960 when his lilac Ford Thunderbird convertible was in collection with a truck on a street in Rome, near the US Embassy.  He was taken to hospital but his injuries were so severe he could not be saved.

Only a few hours earlier, he had been out for dinner with friends and had met the upcoming star Mina Mazzini to discuss possible collaboration. Mina would go on to become Italy’s all-time biggest selling female artist.

Buscaglione’s funeral took place in Turin with tens of thousands of fans lining the streets. His body was buried at the Monumental Cemetery in the city.

The futuristic Luigi Einaudi Campus of the University of
Turin dominates the Vanchiglia neighbourhood

Travel tip:

The Vanchiglia neighbourhood of Turin, where Buscaglione lived immediately after his return from captivity in Sardinia, is an historic district a few streets away from the Palazzo Reale and the Mole Antonelliana. It is best known for the presence of the Luigi Einaudi Campus of the University of Turin and therefore has a high student population. With this has come an explosion in the number of bars and cafés and a growing music scene.

The Via Vittorio Veneto was one of Rome's most
fashionable streets in its heyday

Travel tip:

Rome's US Embassy is on Via Vittorio Veneto, commonly known as the Via Veneto, is one of the capital's most famous, elegant and expensive streets. The street is named after the 1918 Battle of Vittorio Veneto, a decisive Italian victory of World War I, and immortalised by Federico Fellini's 1960 film La Dolce Vita, which celebrated its heyday in the '50s and '60s when its bars and restaurants attracted Hollywood stars and jet set personalities.  Some of Rome's most renowned cafés and five star hotels, such as Café de Paris, Harry's Bar, the Regina Hotel Baglioni and the Westin Excelsior are located in Via Veneto.

More reading:

Leo Chiosso - the other half of the hit-creating 1950s partnership

The comedic genius of Totò

Italy's all-time biggest-selling female star

Also on this day:

1553: The birth of botanist Prospero Alpini

1941: The birth of actor Franco Nero

1955: The birth of composer Ludovico Einaudi

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Pino Presti – bass player and composer

Talented musician could sing, play guitar, compose and conduct

Pino Presti has been one of the Italian music scene's
most important figures since the 1960s

Pino Presti, one of the most important personalities in the Italian music business, was born Giuseppe Prestipino Giarritta on this day in 1943 in Milan.

He is a bass guitar player, arranger, composer, conductor and record producer and his work ranges between the different music genres of pop, jazz, funk, latin and dance.

His father, Arturo Prestipino Giarritta, was a well-known violinist and Presti began studying piano and music theory at the age of six.

He taught himself to play the bass guitar and began playing professionally at the age of 17, having developed his own special technique using either the pick or thumb.

Presti was a pioneer of electric bass and was probably the first to play a Fender Jazz Bass in Italy.

His talent for playing the instrument led him to collaborate with the major Italian pop artists of the 1960s, including the famous singer, Mina, who is Italy's all-time top-selling female recording artist. Presti arranged and conducted 86 tracks and composed four songs for her, also sometimes backing her as a singer.

Presti enjoyed a long working relationship
with the major Italian star, Mina

Among the many other artists he worked with were Bobby Solo, Gigliola Cinquetti and Adriano Celentano. 

In 1976 he created and produced for Atlantic Records, the album, Ist Round, which was considered the first funk dance production and one of the most innovative albums of the 1970s in Italy.

In 1977 he signed a contract with RAI2 to be arranger, conductor and composer of original music for the famous TV show, Auditorio A, and he was responsible for conducting a big band of 56 notable musicians.

Presti also collaborated with some of the biggest names on the international music scene such as Shirley Bassey, Wilson Pickett, Stephane Grappelli and Maynard Ferguson.

In 2013 he produced the tribute album Shirley Bunnie-Foy, consisting of 17 tracks performed by jazz vocalist Shirley Bunnie-Foy during her 60-year career.

In 2014 he composed, co-produced and released under the pseudonym Mad of Jazz, the album Deep Colours and in 2016 he composed the music for the advertising campaign of Scavolini, an Italian kitchen and bathroom manufacturer.

Between 1967 and 1985 Presti trained in Shotokan karate under Japanese masters and obtained his 5th degree black belt in Rome in 1987.

Since 2004, he has lived in Nice in the South of France.

The Piccolo Teatro in Milan

Travel tip:

Milan, where Presti was born and lived for many years, has a wealth of theatres with a long tradition of staging different entertainment. Teatro Litta next to Palazzo Litta in Corso Magenta is believed to be the oldest theatre in the city. Teatro Dal Verme in San Giovanni sul Muro opened in 1872 and the Piccolo Teatro in Via Rivoli opened in 1947. Milan’s most famous theatre, Teatro alla Scala, in Piazza della Scala, across the road from Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II,  was first inaugurated in 1778. The theatre has a fascinating museum that displays costumes and memorabilia from its long history. The entrance is in Largo Ghiringhelli, just off Piazza Scala. It is open every day except the Italian Bank Holidays and a few days in December. Opening hours are from 9.00 to 12.30 and 1.30 to 5.30pm.

One side of the Sforza Castle in Milan

Travel tip

One of the other main sights in Milan is the impressive Sforza castle, Castello Sforzesco, built in the 15th century by Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan. After Ludovico Sforza became Duke of Milan in 1494 he commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to fresco several rooms. The castle now houses some of the city’s museums and art galleries. For more information visit www.milanocastello.it

More reading:

How Mina changed the rules for women in 1960s Italy

Adriano Celentano spans the ages of Italian pop music

Gigliola Cinquetti - Italy's first queen of Eurovision

Also on this day:

1945: The birth of 60s singing star Rita Pavone

1974: The death of pioneering psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli


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