Journalist, writer and pioneering TV
talk show host Maurizio Costanzo has died at the age of 84, his
press office said Friday.
The Maurizio Costanzo Show on Silvio Berlusoni's Mediaset
network was a hit for years and made a star of Costanzo, a
penetrating interviewer and caustic and quick-witted
commentator.
Costanzo came from the world of print journalism, and was also a
film and TV screenwriter.
His campaigns were legion and one against the mafia almost got
him killed by a Cosa Nostra bomb in 1993.
He survived the attack and doubled down on his fight against the
Mob.
Born in Rome on August 28, 1938, Costanzo scripted dozens of
radio and TV shows and wrote many theatrical comedies including
The Adoptive Husband and Take Back Your Empties.
He first found fame in 1976 by presenting the Rai state
broadcaster show Bontà Loro.
But his name was permanently linked to the Maurizio Costanzo
Show, modelled on US chat shows and a staple of Mediaset from
1982 on.
He also wrote for Buona Domenica, Italy's popular Sunday
afternoon omnibus entertainment show.
Costanzo wrote several books including Chi mi credo di essere
(2004, in collab. with G. Dotto), E che sarà mai? (2006), La
strategia della tartaruga (2009), Sipario! 50 anni di teatro.
Storia e testi (2015), Vi racconto l'Isis (2016) and
Smemorabilia, Catalogo sentimentale degli oggetti perduti
(2022).
He had been married to another top TV host, Maria De Filippi,
since 1995.
Even at 84, Costanzo was still fronting his landmark show last
December and had not lost his trademark Roman irony, curiosity,
acute insight, ability to look to the past and future and desire
to challenge himself.
Costanzo, the father of the talk show all'italiana, died in his
native Rome with his family around him after revolutionising the
way Italy recounted current affairs, politics, culture and
society.
"Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of being a journalist," he
said recently. "I've done radio, TV, I've been on telly for over
40 years. But I've still got that desire, it's the same as the
lad so many years ago. Perhaps it's like an illness...
Costanzo, who recently hailed the arrest of Cosa Nostra
superfugitive Matteo Messina Denaro by saying "I'm still here
and the State has won", fronted over 4,500 editions of his
seminal talk show, a 'salotto' in which VIPs, protagonists of
civic and life and ordinary people revealed their lives,
problems, injustices and conflicts.
Among his headline guests over the years on stage at Rome's
Ariston Theatre, outside which the Mob bomb went off in May
1993, were screen legends including Marcello Mastroianni,
Vittorio Gassmann, Sophia Loren, Virna Lisi, Michelangelo
Antonioni and Walter Chiari, but also political protagonists
like Andreotti, Spadolini, Gorbachev, Cossiga, Salvini, Meloni,
and Berlusconi.
And not forgetting the soon to be slain by Mafia bombs crusading
magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, protagonists
of a memorable dual broadcast with Michele Santoro's Samarcanda
on September 26, 1991, dedicated to the memory of slain
anti-protection racket businessman Libero Grassi.
The one blot on Costanzo's copybook was his membership, along
with many other journalists and establishment figures, in the
subversive para-Masonic PD lodge.
Costanzo said his favourite interview was with 'Queen Mary', his
wife De Filippi, sharing memories, smiles and slices of life
together that gained a record audience in February 2017.
But, as he was wont to say, "I must admit that all
personalities, even the biggest rascals, have an interesting
side".
The only interviewee that got away was the succession of popes
he lived under.
Costanzo, who got his start in journalism at left-leaning Paese
Sera in the early 70s, was married four times: to Lori
Sammartino in 1963; Flaminia Morandi in 1973 (with whom he had
Camilla, now a screenwriter, and Saverio, a film director);
Marta Flavi, in1987; and Maria De Filippi, to whom he was
attached since 1995.
Costanzo's body will lie in state at the Campidoglio (Capitol)
from 10:30 Saturday.
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