URBINO – Applause, laughter and a Lectio magistralis that turns into a real show. It is the day of the University Seal Award ceremony of the University of Urbino to Rosario Fiorello.
«Mom, you dreamed of a graduate son. We made it”
As soon as he received the Seal from the hands of the Rector of Urbino, Giorgio Calcagnini, Fiorello turned to his mother in the room: «There is my mother here, who dreamed of a graduate son… Mother! We did it, by hook or by crook we got something”
The debut in kindergarten, the football team and the coach with the funeral agency
The Lectio Magistralis: «I had the imprinting since kindergarten, they called me for a play where I had to play Ulysses. It was a Chinese shadow theater and when the sheet falls I see the audience for the first time, all the parents present enthusiastically and this ovation galvanized me, an immense gratification that has remained with me. Then I went to primary school and middle school and I didn’t have the show in mind: I wanted to be a footballer and I started playing in the Augusta team and they went around with the funeral car because the coach had a funeral agency and when we arrived the opposing teams would they touched. But there was something wrong.”
«I saw the shows of the time, Valter Chiari, Paolo Panelli, Gino Bramieri, Pippo Baudo, Corrado and they all intrigued me. Then I started with Radio Libera and there Antonio Cacciaguerra (the manager of the funeral home) asked me to make a commercial for his business. I played Jack the Ripper with the final slogan… by hook or by crook I was successful.”
The first experience in a tourist village
«Something happens in Agusta that changes my life radically: a tourist village in Valtur is built and they took me on as a kitchen porter. I do the first week and I say: it’s very hard here. So I start messing around and I become friends with the chef who takes me into the kitchen as a second course chef’s assistant and I always made baked potatoes. Through the porthole I looked and saw that life was there. Where there were waiters. But even closer to the girls was the barman. And there I was.”
The gag with Mayor Gambini being late in the audience
Meanwhile, Mayor Gambini arrives late in the audience and sits in the front row: «Are you coming now? Everything was lost.” And he imitates the speech already made in time-lapse amid general hilarity.
«The village head tells me: you have to be an entertainer because you were born to entertain people. In the meantime I did my military service in ’82, Car in Bari and then in the province of Pordenone. In that period the Red Brigades reappeared and attacked the barracks to take weapons. And I become a soldier, in the guards with a shot in the barrel. That is, the future king of karaoke was fighting the Red Brigades!
«As an animator I earned 120 thousand lire a month and I started touring, I went to Africa improvising evenings and shows. When I discovered that jokes could be prepared, everything changed. So today I am preparing a safety net, 60% of the show because in any case Rai must know whether to censor something.” And an ovation.
The crisis arrives, the Festivalbar in Verona and Bibi Ballandi
«When you get too high there is always a moment when you risk falling. So I stopped and started making plans, like the Festivalbar. At the Verona Arena, the Red Chili Pepper was supposed to arrive but they don’t arrive: the patron of the Festival tells me to go on stage to improvise. As soon as I hear the first laugh I start messing around for 45 minutes. In the front row was Bibi Ballandi, producer of Rai’s biggest shows. As soon as I finish he comes backstage: you have to do the variety show on RaiUno.” And so my career began.
The finale of the Lectio Magistralis
«I never had the ambition to become famous. If you have 10 million followers you think you are God but then you have to deal with reality. I think studying is the most beautiful thing in the world, I couldn’t do it because I also needed to work and I didn’t graduate from the Scientific School, actually do you have any diplomas here besides the Seal?”. Standing ovation and selfie. To the mayor of Urbino: «Mayor, do we want to remove these climbs?».
The reasons for the awarding of the University Seal
«An attentive observer of man – we read in one of the passages contained in the reasons for the recognition – he interprets his deepest needs with a biting spirit that never deviates from politeness».
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