During the new episode of Sunday In of 5 May 2024broadcast on Rai 1 and conducted by Mara Venierwe witness a tribute to the late singer-songwriter Toto Cutugno, with his son Nico ready to tell it in all its nuances. In the studio to remember him too Alba Parietti, Paolo Giordano, Ivana Spagna and Lino Banfi. Among the guests we also remember Umberto Tozzi, Michele Placido and Ornella Muti with Diodato and Lina Nastri.
The recap of the May 5, 2024 episode of Domenica In
Sunday In begins with a wonderful and long tribute to Toto Cutugno, who passed away on August 22, 2023 due to complications from prostate cancer. His son remembers the late singer-songwriter in the first part of the program dedicated to him Nicolò Cutugno, born from an extramarital affair. “I thank you for waiting long enough to talk about dad with joy“, Nico says to Mara Venier before telling us about his father: “Until I was 8 I didn’t know that my father was a singer, for me he was just dad. I saw him often but I had no idea who he was. I remember with a smile a moment together: I was in the car with him and on the radio he was playing I want to go and live in the countryside and there was something that didn’t add up to me because the timbre of the voice was recognisable, but he told me he was an engineer. It was a way to protect myself and protect mine and his privacy. The story came out in the newspapers and at that point they had to tell me. My great-grandfather came to me and said: ‘Your father is Toto Cutugno’. It’s not that my mother didn’t have the courage to tell me, simply, as already said, hers too was a form of guardianship and protection, it was also right. I am the fruit of their love and I don’t think there is anything wrong“.
He talks about his father strengths and weaknesses: “He was a present father, I always felt a lot of love from him, but also extremely youthful and very joking, he was also very easy going with my friends, but he cared about the fact that I had those 3 or 4 rules of education and respect. If I broke them he would get very heated, he would get nervous. Dad was torn between the joy of having me with him and the fact that she was a bit of a prima donna, so he also felt a bit of jealousy that even he couldn’t explain. Once we were in Tel Aviv and I asked him to sing the song Hallelujah. I performed and the audience was very happy. Then, at the dinner with his collaborators I arrive a little late and he tells me in front of everyone: ‘Come on, hurry up, you’re out of tune tonight. He was extremely perfectionist in the field of music, he didn’t give discounts to anyone, not even me. I played with him, not alone. I feared dad’s judgment but we got to the point where he managed to tell me that he liked what I wrote. Only in the last year though. I started writing for the fun of it and maybe I got better over time. I certainly suffered his personality as I grew up, but I have always had a relationship of dialogue with him. The way he understood me best was through my music: he listened to it again on his own and processed the messages. Mine was strategy“.
There is no shortage of memory of the last days of life by Toto Cutugno: “He experienced the illness in his own way, as if he hadn’t accepted it, he hadn’t taken time to treat himself and stay calm. He did chemo during the week and concerts on the weekend. He had managed to fight with great courage, he did not give in to the disease. Obviously there have been changes, but this strength is the thing that struck me the most, and I have always been close to him. There was a significant age difference with him – he was 80, I’m 34 – so I always had the thought of losing him, and I was scared of what happened afterwards because he was a central figure in my life. This passage was not so much verbal, we shared the last days of his life together, often in silence, and it was precisely the presence that cured“.
The homage to Cutugno continues with Alba Parietti, Paolo Giordano, Ivana Spagna, Lino Banfi and Nico himself in the studio at Mara Venier. The first to speak is Parietti, who initially addresses the singer-songwriter’s son directly: “During his illness he improved and became more and more generous. You have the best part of him“. Later, however, the presenter, after declaring that it is right to give a truthful portrait of the artist, says: “Toto had a characteristic: as far as pranks and surprises were concerned, he did them both positively and negatively, let’s say it right so as not to make it a saint“. Then talking about when they had conducted together Sunday InHe says: “He made me do wonderful duets but I wanted Biagio Antonacci, who was just starting out at the time, and this bothered him. In the end he made us do it, but shortly before Biagio and I entered the studio Toto made everyone believe we were in trouble. It was embarrassing because the audience was chanting. He had a devilish side“. “And vice versa, at Sanremo I thought he still had a bit of bitterness after that Sunday In of lightning and lightning between us, but he went up with his Russian Army – it was the moment of his consecration – and first of all, seeing me sitting in the front row, he said: ‘I salute my Albina’. He was truly hate and love in the good sense of the word, he could apply all these things with equal ease. We argued many times like animals“, concludes Alba Parietti.
At the end of the tribute, a video by Pupo to remember the singer-songwriter, with Mara Venier who, looking straight at the camera with a smile, is keen to point out: “Thanks to Pupo for this video message. We had also asked others, but they didn’t arrive…“.
Umberto Tozzi on Domenica In
Umberto Tozzi takes stock of his life a Sunday Inwhere he talks about Health problems due to the bladder cancer that had affected him (he also had Covid), of wife Monica and his childrenalso revealing that the next one will be his last concert: “I went through two very difficult, very difficult years of health, and I promised myself that if I got out of it I would do all the things that I hadn’t been able to do until now. I got to think about the important things in life, everything else is optional. You know that doing this job, I have been touring since the 80s and I have never stopped because I have had the privilege of being appreciated in many countries around the world and therefore I return with this wonderful last concert because I want to reciprocate all the affection I have received. I have the great regret of not having been a very close father to my children, I often took them on tour with me when they were little but I missed many things and now I would like to dedicate myself more to them, even if they are older, and to my grandchildren who I care about very much. I was lucky enough to have my wife by my side: she is fantastic, the most loyal person I have met in life. She has always been very close to me, even giving me advice. I married her 5 times. In the course of our life she made me fall in love many more times, and every time I felt my heart explode. I always tried to ask her if she wanted to remarry me, but she didn’t always say yes“.
Michele Placido and Ornella Muti by Mara Venier
Michele Placido and Ornella Muti they enter the studio to celebrate the 50 years since the film’s release Popular noveland the actor and director immediately makes a revelation when Muti recalls that she was pregnant with Naike at the time: “I hadn’t noticed anything [l’attrice lo aveva detto solo al regista Mario Monicelli, ndr], even if there was this wonderful breast that peeked out every now and then… Ugo Tognazzi said to me: ‘But are you trying a bit with her?’ I was terrified because it was my first important film, but little by little… he put the idea in my head, and you can understand… she was loved by everyone, even by Vanzina, assistant director. She was an explosion of extraordinary femininity, and then she was cute, sweet, gentle, kind. How do you resist? And I fell in love… I shouldn’t have said it“. Mara interrupts him: “And you tell him now?“, and Ornella Muti quips: “We always make it on time!” “I’m ashamed… No, not really. How could you not fall in love with a girl with all the qualities of aesthetic beauty, but above all a young woman with a sort of mysticism. It’s not that beauty she flaunts. She is Mediterranean“, adds the director. The actress confesses that she didn’t notice anything at the time, even if he was hitting on her a little (“As he says, when you’re young a lot of people try. I didn’t think he was in love, he never declared himself“, he states), and Placido himself tells an anecdote about it: “He had other thoughts. We shot a scene in which you could see her thigh, and then her breasts peeking out… We couldn’t understand anything, and then, returning to the residence, we took the lift and I looked at her and then lowered my eyes. She was smiling at me and I took it as saying, ‘Kiss me, right?’ Because then the man is an idiot, he imagines everything and he immediately starts the attack, and I wanted to do it. I told her: ‘Ornella, how much I like you! Can I kiss you?’ I quickly walked over to give it to her and she smacked me in the face“. The actress remembers what happened in the elevator but not of giving him the slap: “I wasn’t sure what to do. You know, in the elevator with someone trying to kiss you… But my thoughts were all elsewhere. I was expecting a child, I was far from everything“.
