Italian postcard by E.N.P., Roma. Design by F. Picchioni.
Aurelio Fierro (Montella, 13 September 1923 - Naples, 11 March 2005) was an Italian singer and actor, famous for songs like Lazzarella, Guaglione, and Á pizza. In the late 1950s, he acted in a dozen of film comedies.
He was originally from Montella, in the province of Avellino, and belonged to a family of builders. An uncle had opened a cinema-theatre in Montella in 1932. He was a cousin of the local politician Attilio Fierro. He graduated in the 1940s with a degree in engineering, but in 1951 he won a competition for new voices, coming first out of 600, which enabled him to sign a contract with Durium, with whom he would later record a series of songs in Neapolitan and Italian. In 1953, with Rose, poveri rrose! he won the first festival in Castellammare di Stabia. This prompted him to leave his profession as an engineer to devote himself to music. His first success was Scapricciatiello. In 1956 he won the Festival of Naples with Guaglione. The song brought him international fame, also thanks to the numerous tours he made in the USA and Canada. It was translated into several languages and the French version, Bambino, took him to the Olympia in Paris the following year for three weeks from 22 May to 11 June with enormous success, so much so that he was asked to extend the show, but the imminent birth of his first child prevented him from staying.
Fierro achieved great popularity in 1957 with Lazzarella, written by Domenico Modugno. In France Dalida sang a French version of it. The song became the soundtrack of the eponymous film in which Fierro starred alongside Luigi De Filippo, Tina Pica and Domenico Modugno, and which was directed by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia. Oddly enough, Fierro was dubbed by Carlo Romano in this film. Fierro participated in six Sanremo Italian Song Festivals (1958, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1963 and 1964) and several editions of the Festival della canzone napoletana, of which he won five editions (1956-58-61-65-69) as well as obtaining six second and two third places. Fierro also participated in various editions of Canzonissima, winning the 1957 edition (called Voci e volti della fortuna) with the song Scapricciatiello. One of his most famous songs is 'A pizza, written by Alberto Testa and presented at the Festival of Naples 1966, together with Giorgio Gaber. In 1961 he took part in the Giugno della Canzone Napoletana.
In the late 1950s Aurelio Fierro acted in a dozen of films, alongside Tina Pica, Pupella Maggio, Nino Manfredi, Sylva Koscina and Terence Hill/ Mario Girotti. In addition to Lazzarella, he acted a.o. in Caporale di giornata (C.L. Bragaglia, 1958), Ricordati di Napoli (Pino Mercanti, 1958), Serenatella sciuè sciuè (Carlo Campogalliani, 1958), and Quel tesoro di papà (Marino Girolami, 1959). All of them were comedies, sometimes musicarello style. In 1996 he played Iaia Forte's father in Luna e l'altra by Maurizio Nichetti, a Golden Globe nominee that year, while his last part was in a parody on Titanic called Aitanic (Nino D'Angelo, 2000).
He was also a discographer, founding and managing the King record label, which between the early 1960s and the first half of the 1970s was also important at national level, with leading artists Peppino Gagliardi and Enzo Del Forno. In the seventies he was a municipal councillor in Naples for the Christian Democrats. In 1976, to commemorate the death of the composer Salvatore Mazzocco, the record company Durium dedicated to the latter the album La Napoli di Salvatore Mazzocco: Aurelio Fierro, Mirna Doris, Mario Trevi sing. A scholar of Neapolitan culture and traditions, he wanted to found a museum of Neapolitan song with a small theatre for tourists, but the project failed. He succeeded in publishing a Grammar of the Neapolitan language and, for Rusconi with a preface by Antonio Ghirelli, a book of Neapolitan tales and legends. Throughout the nineties, he was busy writing a four-volume Historical Encyclopaedia of Songs, which he was unable to publish. In 1986 he opened a restaurant in Naples with his wife, and a pizzeria in 1996. In November and December 2000 he was on tour in Japan in 30 cities to open the year of "Italy in Japan" and, given its success, he was called to close the year with another tour in 18 Japanese cities. In 2002, with one of his last performances, he participated in the Carosone Award. Aurelio Fierro died in 2005 from a stroke, and was buried in the family chapel in the cemetery of Montella.
Sources: Italian Wikipedia, IMDb.
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Italian postcard by E.N.P., Roma. Design by F. Picchioni.
One of Italy's best-loved artists, Adriano Celentano (1938) has been equally successful in film and music. Since starting his career as a rock ‘n roll singer in 1957, Adriano Celentano has released 40 albums. This superstar of Italian pop music is also active as a songwriter, comedian, film director, and TV host.
Tags: Picchioni portrait Vintage Vedette Postcard Postkarte POstale Postkaart Postal Picture Cinema Carte Cartolina Cine Carte Postale Card Celebrity Costume Cinema Italiano Film Film Star Movies Movie Star Screen Star SChauspieler Darsteller Ansichtkaart Ansichtskarte Actor Acteur Attore singer chanteur cantante Sänger 1960s Adriano Celentano
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Italian postcard by E.N.P., Roma. Design by F. Picchioni.
Italian-Belgian composer and singer Salvatore Adamo (1943) was a teen idol in the first half of the 1960s. Occasionally he also starred in films.
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Italian postcard by E.N.P., Roma. Art work by F. Picchioni.
Caterina Caselli (born 10 April 1946) is an Italian record producer, music executive, singer, bass player and actress.
Caselli was born in Modena but grew up in Sassuolo. She started her music career by playing bass in local clubs. In 1966 she debuted in the Sanremo Festival with "Nessuno mi può giudicare", a song discarded by Adriano Celentano, scoring a notable success. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. She also acted in the homonymous film (Ettore Maria Fizzarotti, 1966), in which she performed the song as well, as a record seller in a department store. For a clip with this performance, see www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8XAHNbyWIs. In the same year she starred in Perdono (Ettore Maria Fizzarotti, 1966), based on another domestic hit single by Caselli. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Uy9hjAVtQ
Additional musicarello films with Caselli starring were Io non protesto, io amo (Ferdinando Baldi, 1967), Play-Boy (Enzo Battaglia, 1967), L'immensità (La ragazza del Paip's) (Oscar De Fina, 1967), and Il professor Matusa e i suoi hippies (Carlo Martinelli , 1968), always with Caselli performing as 'Caterina', her own first name. Caselli also had considerable success with an Italian cover of the David McWilliams song "Days of Pearly Spencer" called "Il volto della vita". Her first album, Casco d'oro (Golden Bob), was titled after a nickname given to her by the music press. In 1968 Caselli enjoyed further success with a dynamic version of the Paolo Conte-penned tune “Insieme a te non ci sto più". In 2006, Caselli recorded a new version of the song for the soundtrack of the Michele Soavi's neo-noir film The Goodbye Kiss. This version won the David di Donatello Award for Best Song. In 1970 she married Piero Sugar, head of her music label CGD. Caselli started working with her husband, eventually becoming president of Sugar Music, and retired from her performing career. She discovered and recorded artists such as Andrea Bocelli, Giuni Russo, Elisa, Negramaro and Piccola Orchestra Avion Travel. In 1983 she was lured out of retirement when she agreed to record "Amico è" with Dario Baldan Bembo. The song peaked at number 5 in the Italian charts.
Source: English Wikipedia, IMDb.
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Italian postcards. Art work by F. [Franco] Picchioni. E.N.P., Roma.
Claudio Villa (* January 1, 1926 in Rome as Claudio Pica; † February 7, 1987 in Padua) was an Italian singer and actor. He possessed a particularly high tenor voice and was considered the "little king" (reuccio) of melodious, popular song in 1950s Italy. Villa participated in the Sanremo Festival a full 13 times (including four victories), and twice also represented his country in the Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson.
Born in the popular Roman neighborhood of Trastevere, Villa particularly cherished the song tradition of his hometown. He made his debut as a singer in the Ambra Jovinelli theater in 1944 after various odd jobs, but fell ill with tuberculosis just one year later, which affected his singing technique. With his special falsetto singing, Villa established himself as the founder of the Italian gorgheggiatori ("yodelers"). He released his first recordings on the Italian Parlophon label, beginning in 1947, until 1949, when he founded the Vis Radio label with fellow musician Gino Conte. At the 1955 Sanremo Festival, Villa immediately entered the race as the favorite and actually won the competition together with Tullio Pane with the song Buongiorno tristezza. Due to his wave of popularity in the 1950s, Villa also appeared in a number of films as an actor. After minor parts from 1948 onward, he had his first lead in Serenata amara (Pino Mercanti, 1952) opposite Liliana Bonfatti. Until 1960 he would act in some 20 films, often romantic or musical comedies, such as the musicarello films Canzone d'amore (Giorgio Simonelli, 1954) with Maria Fiore, Ore 10: lezione di canto (Marino Girolami, 1955), Canzone proibita (Flavio Calzavara, 1956), Guaglione (Simonelli, 1956) starring Mario Girotti [the future Terence Hill], Vivendo cantando (Girolami, 1957). Sette canzoni per sette sorelle (Girolami, 1957), etc. The film titles were often pastiches on popular American or Italian films. The last of Villa's 1950s big wave was Fontana di Trevi (Carlo Campogalliani, 1960). A last lead Villa had in Granada, addio! (Girolami, 1967).
After switching to the Cetra label in 1956, the singer won the Sanremo Festival again in 1957, this time with Corde della mia chitarra, together with Nunzio Gallo. Gallo also subsequently presented the song at the Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson. Until 1982 Villa participated eleven more times in Sanremo, often having several entries in the running. Together with Domenico Modugno, he won the festival again in 1962 with the song Addio... addio..., which he also presented himself at the Grand Prix Eurovision (he ended up in ninth place). Villa finally achieved his fourth Sanremo victory in 1967 with Non pensare a me together with Iva Zanicchi. That same year he competed a second time at the Grand Prix, finishing eleventh with Non andare più lontano.
While Villa was still considered the undisputed "king" of his genre in the 1950s, public taste in Italy began to change in the early 1960s. Villa was increasingly considered old-fashioned, and more modern singers such as Domenico Modugno were preferred. Villa, however, changed his style and repertoire very little. His difficult character also regularly led to numerous quarrels with other singers, with the organizers of the Sanremo Festival, and with the press.
Sources: German and Italian Wikipedia, IMDb.
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