Maurizio Costanzo, the story of a character who has marked Italian culture
From his early passion for journalism to the great successes in the world of entertainment and television that have studded his career
Passing away from the affection of loved ones on February 24 at the age of 84 , Maurizio Costanzo was one of the public figures among the major exponents of the television panorama - but also of cinema, entertainment and costume - to have marked the Italian culture of our time .
With sadness in our hearts, we try to retrace the stages that most determined his rise and notoriety .
Given his irrepressible and very precocious passion for journalism, Costanzo began working in Paese Sera at the age of only 18; a phase of his career that is still unpaid which nonetheless paved the way for opportunities with magazines such as “ TV Sorrisi e Canzoni ” and “ Grazia ”. In 1976 we owe him the birth of " Bontà Loro ", one of the first television talk shows in our country.
But it is with the " Maurizio Costanzo Show " that the conductor has reached the peaks of his fame. A program that aired from 1982 to 2009 , then resumed from 2015 to 2022 , and has become a true symbol of the Mediaset television station . With a style, if you will, of the confidential type, the MSC consisted of a living room talk show , albeit historically and invariably set in the Parioli Theater in Rome . The quality that most of all has been able to distinguish the broadcast from its rivals is that of having consecrated the audience in the room on a par with the guests of the episodes , actively placing it in the opening of listening or, often, in fierce opposition. The result was a unique mixture of the sacred and the profane , of television scuffles intertwined with moments of high reflection, of a taste for the classic together with that of novelty.
With its simple but functional structure – made up of guests and audience, stalls and stage, pianist and musical band – Costanzo has created one of the longest-lasting and most imitated television formats ever in the history of Italian TV, but the merit must also be attributed to his style. Gian Paolo Caprettini defined him as "a pontiff of interruption ", that is capable of introducing himself into the many conversations with elegance, favoring an always engaging development. He was also a great expert in allusions , adept at suspending sentences in mid-sentences so as to have them completed by the audience or guests with a sometimes provocative, sometimes hilarious result. No less important, he must also be recognized for the first, real breaking down of the border between journalism and entertainment , that type of format which today is framed more generically with the term " infotainment " and which in Italy, before Costanzo, simply did not exist.
It was precisely on the stage of the Parioli Theater that some of the most popular actors of recent Italian cinema were born , at the time kids who were simply willing to put themselves on the line and today they are guarantees of success for various productions. Think, for example, of Valerio Mastrandrea and Ricky Memphis . Mentioning some who later established themselves as great comedians, we cannot forget Daniele Luttazzi , Giobbe Covatta , Enzo Iacchetti and Dario Vergassola . It should also be remembered how strongly Costanzo has been influential in the world of cinema . We owe him " Salò or the 120 days of Sodom " by Pier Paolo Pasolini and the screenplays of many other titles. The partnership that made him most famous in this area is the one with Pupi Avati thanks to which films such as “ Bordella ”, “ The house of laughing windows ”, “ Tutti defunti…except the dead and Zeder ” were born. But equally important is his contribution to the screenplay for " A particular day ", the masterpiece of director Ettore Scola starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni .
Even with respect to perhaps less impactful production contexts but no less interesting for this we owe to the partnership between Costanzo and his previous partner Simona Izzo what we could define as the first Italian sitcom entitled " Orazio ", released in 1984 . Among other projects, although he is not usually remembered for having written songs, his " Se telephoning " has always been an emblem of Italian music, being able to count on the arrangement of maestro Ennio Morricone and on the extraordinary interpretation of Mina . Outside the world of entertainment, Costanzo has also been at the center of numerous bombastic news stories, from his involvement in the P2 Lodge which cost him his expulsion from TV for a short time, to his decisive commitment in the fight against the mafia, which he risked his life in an attack on Via Fauro, near the Parioli Theater, on May 14, 1993 .
