R.I.P. Raimondo Vianello

He wasn’t very well known outside of Italy, but Raimondo Vianello, who died earlier this morning (15th April), was a huge figure in Italian comedy.  He was one of a group of comedians who emerged in the late fifties and early sixties – others included Alberto Sordi, Ugo Tognazzi, Franco and Ciccio, Walter Chiari and Lando Buzzanca – who made the numerous production line comedies that were one of the mainstays of the industry during its golden years.  Particular parts that may be of interest include his excellent turn as a hopeless secret agent in Il vostro superagente Flit (66) and Michele Lupo’s Sette volte sette (68), not to mention parodies of just about every genre going.  Despite making over 60 films, though, he was actually better known as a TV star.

Here’s the notice from Corriere della sera.

MILAN – Raimondo Vianello, the actor and television presenter who, with his wife Sandra Mondaini, was one of the best known faces on Italian TV. On 7 May he had celebrated his 88th birthday. The death occurred at ten to seven San Raffaele hospital in Milan, after a worsening of his physical condition. The funeral will be held Saturday at 11 probably in the church of Milan Due the neighborhood where he lived. The news of his death has aroused much emotion and sympathy, not only in show business.

THE CAREER – His professional career began in revue theater after the war, an experience that had affected him (he had been detained at an allied concentration camp in Coltano along with the poet Ezra Pound and other future faces of cinema such as Walter Chiari, Enrico Maria Salerno and Luciano Salce). In the fifties he began to devote himself to the movies and had played alongside renowned actors such as Toto and Ugo Tognazzi, and he also started the television program Un, due, tre, which made him famous. In 1962 he married Sandra Mondaini and the two of them formed one of the best known partnerships of Italian comedy. In the seventies and eighties, they featured in several TV series, such as Sai che ti dico?, Tante scuse, Di nuovo tante scuse, Noi… no, Io e la befana, the quiz Sette e mezzo and Stasera niente di nuovo.

Over the past twenty years Vianello was one of the faces of Channel 5 and, in tandem with his wife, made the sitcom Casa Vianello (which, in Grasso’s opinion, ‘was one of the few second homes available to all, a sort of free-share “), Cascina Vianello and Cruise Vianello. He was a big sports fan, and was also the host of Pressing, Mediaset’s response to Domenica Sportiva.