Presenter, author, partisan, entertainer, writer, climber, entrepreneur, he made the history of Italian TV, first on Rai and then on Mediaset, which he helped to invent and revolutionize.

Mike Bongiorno would have turned 100 today, May 26th. He suffered a heart attack on September 8th 2009 in a suite at the Metropole hotel in Monte Carlo, where he was on a short holiday with his wife Daniela Zuccoli, with whom he shared 39 years. of life and three sons Michele, Nicolò and Leonardo.

The king of the tele-quiz, who inaugurated Italian TV, was awarded the Telegatto twenty times , presented eleven Sanremo festivals , starting from '63 and up to '97 (when he formed the strange couple with Piero Chiambretti). Despite his long career at Mediaset, his 25 years at Rai remained an uninterrupted thread . Mike was always there. First, importing the television quiz from the United States. Then, giving life to innovative formats. When he died, he was preparing for a new debut: the one with the quiz Riskytutto on Sky, where he landed after the expiry of the contract with Mediaset. And where he had experienced a second youth alongside Fiorello: first in TV commercials, then with forays into his shows.

Mediaset, to celebrate Mike's 100th birthday, has reinstated "La Ruota della Fortuna" in the early evening from 7 May , entrusted to Gerry Scotti , the leading face of Cologno Monzese. «I tried to make Wheel of Fortune in my own way because otherwise it would have been aping – the words of Gerry Scotti – with great respect for the trappings because every game has a liturgy and Mike was a bishop, a pope of games . I tried to respect his times, his ways, there was only one thing I avoided: saying Allegria, I didn't feel like it."

To remember him, Rai has chosen to create a fiction set in Turin , the city where the host moved as a child. In the role of the much loved protagonist are two actors: Elia Nuzzolo as a teenager and Claudio Gioè as an adult. The four-episode series will be called "Mike", directed by Giuseppe Bonito.

THE PROFILE – Michael Nicholas Salvatore Bongiorno was born in New York on May 26, 1924 . Mother from Turin, father Italian-American, he moved to Italy as a child, studied in a high school in Turin and collaborated at a very young age on the sports pages of La Stampa . During the Second World War he joined the partisan formations: he spoke English, perfect as a relay to communicate with the allies. Captured by the Nazis, he spent seven months in the San Vittore prison (near Indro Montanelli's cell), then was transferred first to the Bolzano concentration camp then to Mauthausen. He is saved thanks to a prisoner exchange. After returning to New York for a period, he returned to Italy definitively in 1953, called to work on the newly formed television. And it inaugurated the first day of broadcasts, January 3, 1954, with the program “Arrivals and Departures”. To decree his success is “Leave or double?” (1955). The public response goes beyond all expectations. Those who don't have a TV at home meet in bars, the quiz becomes a moment of popular gathering, when the program is broadcast the cinemas close their doors. From that moment on, every program of his was a triumph. From “Campanile sera” (1960) to “Caccia al numero” (1972), from “La Fiera dei Sogni” (1963-1965) to “Giochi in famiglia” (1966-1967), from “Ieri e Oggi” (1976 ) to “We Bet” (1977) to “Flash” (1980). With “Rischiatutto” (1970-1974) - one of Mike's most important programs - electronics and special effects were introduced on TV for the first time. The figure of the "talking valley", Sabina Ciuffini , is born. Bongiorno's contribution to the birth and rise of private television was fundamental. The meeting with Silvio Berlusconi dates back to the end of the seventies. At the time, for his Telemilano - the future Canale 5 - he chose the most well-known and appreciated characters of the small screen at the time: Bongiorno, but also Corrado, Raimondo Vianello and Sandra Mondaini. Mike frequented the American model, knows the rules of marketing and was the first to introduce sponsorships into the big TV programmes. A new phase of his career began, with a success that earned him the vice-presidency of Canale 5 in 1990 . And the game show that earned him a new triumph (three thousand episodes) is also of American origin: " Wheel of Fortune ".

An unstoppable career, that of Bongiorno, which also sees him acting in some films such as We loved each other so much, The Last Judgment, Totò leaves or doubles?, Monstrously forbidden dreams, Ragazze d'oggi, The billionaires. Extremely sporty until old age: in 2001 (at the age of 77) he set off on a direct expedition to the North Pole. In 2004 the then President of the Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, awarded him the honor of Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Republic . In more recent years Bongiorno dedicated himself to two quizzes on Rete4, while in 2007 he returned to Rai to present the 68th edition of Miss Italia, together with Loretta Goggi. His autobiography, “Mike's Version”, was released in 2008 .

But Mike leaves the last quiz to be solved for after his death : on 25 January 2011, some unknown persons stole the presenter's body from the Dagnente cemetery (Arona). After many weeks, appeals, interrogations, jackals, the coffin was found, still intact, on 8 December of the same year near Vittuone (MI) . The body was immediately cremated in the monumental cemetery of Turin following the wife's decision in agreement with the children: the ashes were scattered in the Matterhorn valleys in the Aosta Valley.

From 21 October 2015 in Milan there is via Mike Bongiorno, in Porta Nuova.

(Unioneonline/vl)

© Riproduzione riservata