Goodbye Pippo. From the years when he was everywhere to the last Domenica In

There was Baudo and Vittorio Gassman, in a 1972 Canzonissima, Gassman destroyed a music stand and made Baudo do somersaults. I was six years old and I remember my father and grandfather smoking and I was laughing. Then there was Baudo introducing a singer all of us from Campania already knew, Pino Daniele. I think it was Pino's first time on the big screen. I remember Baudo's tricky questions, Pino Daniele's breathless, stammering answers in Neapolitan, and then a couple of his live pieces, so beautiful that my family commented: "What courage, bringing Pino Daniele to prime time." Then there was Massimo Troisi with Baudo, everyone was laughing, also because Baudo was an excellent foil. Then Baudo with Beppe Grillo and Baudo with Benigni. Then I Fantastici, the Saturday night show, the ones with Heather Parisi , especially. Then the clash over the concept of national popular with the socialist Manca , and again Baudo who goes on Canale 5 and all of us in the family talking about betrayal. And we were all happy when Baudo returned home, because Baudo was the Rai, therefore the home, and to return home to Rai, Baudo had to give up his house on the Aventine Hill to Berlusconi. I saw Baudo so many times on TV and so many times we happened to talk about him, that at a certain point, since we young people were obsessed with Squallor, we kept quoting Ciro Ippolito's must-see Arrapaho (1984). Here an Indian chief shows his son, called Capa di Bomba, a vast prairie and says to him: all this will be yours one day, who do you love more, mum or dad? Answer: Pippo Baudo. Go fuck yourself – the Indian chief then commented.

For many years, Pippo Baudo was everywhere . So much so that in 1990, when I had just moved to Rome, I saw him at the Galleria Esedra, sitting at Dagnino's, and I greeted him: it was as if I were greeting my grandfather , my relatives gathered in the living room; in fact, I was like those people convinced that the person on television was talking to them. He nodded back . I listed all these memories for him in exactly this order when, in 2016, I had an interview for Domenica In. He was looking for a writer; it would be his last program, and that was clear: he had eye problems, he couldn't see well, he couldn't hear well. "They gave me," he said, "a kind of gift, before they get out of my way. " I called him Doctor Baudo because he had a degree in Law; I imagined he cared about the title, but he said to me: "Pippo, call me Pippo ." Then we started talking. It was 5:26 PM when I entered his office on Via della Giuliana, and I left at 9:40 PM. It was the longest interview I've ever had. I thought I'd get by with a few anecdotes and a few writerly observations, but Baudo—I discovered—was very cultured and quizzed me on: musicals (he'd seen several in London, the city he'd just returned from), theater (not Carmelo Bene, which I liked and was knowledgeable about, but all the other, more popular theater), music (not the one I liked, namely Bristol Sound, but the one he liked, from Giorgia to Ornella Vanoni), cinema, and finally (finally) literature. While he was there, he announced that the first interview he planned to do on Domenica In would be with Eleonora Giorgi. "Not exactly a writer," I replied. And he replied: "Yes, she has a more interesting life than many writers." In subsequent meetings, he was very cheerful, joking, teasing, telling lots of anecdotes, and he explained to us over and over again that he wanted to do a Domenica in, divided into sections: music, strictly live, complete with an orchestra, and theater and/or cinema and literature. In fact, he added, since it's the last thing I do, and I'm the one who discovered Parisi, Cuccarini, and he listed about twenty characters, I'd like to end the scene by discovering some painters . So—and he looked at me—let's find some painters. We need two per episode, they'll compete to create a painting that the audience will then vote on. Where do we find the painters? I asked. He replied: You'll find them at the Academy of Fine Arts, take a look around. It was torment. And here I discovered a new side of him for me: he was obsessive . In fact, he would call me and ask: the painters? Then he would say he was very keen on this idea. He would soon be leaving the scene, but since he'd discovered about twenty new faces—he'd come up with a different list each time, which I must say was impressive—he wanted to sign off on two or three painters. At the first meeting with the director and the set designer, I arrived dissatisfied and worried; I'd only found a couple of painters interested. Baudo began: "It's the last thing I'll do, so since I've discovered... and here we go with the list, I thought I'd put the painters here," and he pointed to the model the set designer had prepared. But the director objected: "We have the cameras here, with all the wires, there's no room for the painters." Right, he said. The director added: "We can remove a row of chairs, and it's done." Baudo replied: "No, otherwise the depth is lost; on television, depth is everything. " Then he turned to me: "But do we really need these painters? Because I could do without them." And so it was; we never spoke about it again. It was a lesson: if you want to last on TV, if you want to do it well, you can't get attached to your ideas, because your ideas clash with the chaos of TV itself. At a certain point, if you want to make good television, you have to know how to listen, be curious, innovate, and backtrack. In fact, he knew how to listen. He was a cultured, intelligent, and likeable man, with a latent tendency toward depression. His mood would suddenly darken, as if he were thinking: What's the point of all this? This complicated his character. Sometimes he would have outbursts of anger, which affected us writers, even though the others who knew him would tell us: you should have seen him in the '80s, then he was Baudo, now he's calmed down. But the laziness, arguments, and tantrums, almost mysteriously, would end before they even hit the screen. A moment before the Live light came on , he was ready, free from ballast, if a moment before he was struggling to speak, now, before the live broadcast he would ask you for the football results and start a discussion on football strategy that would keep going until the studio inspector forcibly pushed you away: move away, 5 seconds and let's start.

It's a matter of habit, some of his former writers I met would say, he only knows how to make television by controlling the television. In fact, he demanded obsessive control over everything, from the cameras to the lights to the jokes (he'd call early in the morning and late at night because he wasn't convinced by a written interview question). Not to mention his control over the orchestra (once he interrupted the conductor because an F sharp was missing from a piece). He lived for the program. He questioned many of the things you wrote. He rarely said "bravo," except when you were unexpectedly in the company of someone, then he'd introduce you with: "my author, very good." He remembered everything. An enviable memory. In 2016, at 82, he had the strength to watch all the films and attend all the theater performances (even in rehearsals) that we would later discuss on "Domenica In," sometimes commenting sarcastically, but never using sarcasm during the interview. A matter of respect, he said, for those who come as guests. You need to know everything about the character, but not overpower him.

On air, Baudo was reborn. He had eye problems but could see perfectly well, his hearing wasn't good but he could hear perfectly well, and he could even hear the writers' whispers backstage. Because he had a strong sense of duty and respect for the audience, the show went on even when the conditions weren't right. In January 2017, he contracted serious pneumonia. In the dressing room before the broadcast, I asked him: "Why do we have to go on air? What's the point?" And he, voiceless, started shouting that there was no way we could give up the show; even when you're dying, you can go on stage. So he pumped himself full of cortisone, so much so that by the end of the episode he was so swollen he couldn't take off his clothes. Then he was hospitalized for five days, and from the hospital he called several times because the schedule for the next episode wasn't working and that joke was really stupid and not funny: "Don't you hear? It doesn't work." And on the sixth day he returned to the studio and on the seventh he was on air. Baudo is a serious professional, yes, of course, a cliché. But just to put the character in context. I once said to him: why don't we invite Professor Mantovani? To talk about vaccines, so we can debunk these hoaxes that are coming out about vaccines and autism. He said: but they're hoaxes, why don't we have a debate between a serious scientist like Mantovani and someone who spouts nonsense? Another author replied, yes, so we can demolish the one who spouts nonsense. And Baudo started shouting, basically he said and said again: if we have a debate like that, we're doing the one who spouts hoaxes a favor, and not a serious scientist like Mantovani, in other words, we're giving legitimacy to an idiot. And then—he added—it turns out to be a boring debate. At the table, in good moments, he talked a lot about his life, even his personal life; he had acknowledged a son he had from a quick relationship; he could have avoided it, but he did. He paid him money: it seemed like a generous gesture to me. He always paid for it.

Once, at dinner, I asked him, "Is there a story you've never told that I can share?" He got straight to the point: the time he brought Liza Minelli to Fantastico. Having met her drunk and by pure chance at a Zeffirelli party, he immediately decided he'd bring her on the show. The operation cost 20 million lire, but Baudo couldn't get an advance from the manager, and had to recover the cash by emptying the takings of the historic bar, Vanni, on Viale Mazzini. Getting her to Fantastico, however, was a feat; Liza Minelli had fainted from drinking too much. He managed it, waking her up in the shower. Everything was fine at Fantastico, except that the next morning he discovered that Minelli had squandered the money on shopping and couldn't afford a return ticket. Baudo had to talk to British Airways, try and reach an agreement: Liza Minelli would take a photo of herself climbing the steps of the plane, a sort of modern-day Instagram story to cover her travel expenses. A funny story—I thought—that illustrates well how television was made in the past and how Baudo had the strength, inspiration, and talent to assert himself and create programs that everyone from the highly cultured Vico-inspired philosopher Aldo Masullo to Squallor would later talk about. I thought I'd tell this story at the right time; he'd entrusted it to me. Then I discovered he'd written it in his 2018 book. After all, he was a man who knew how to anticipate (and ennoble) the times.

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