Everything starts in 1945, just after the end of the slaughter of World War II. Rita is born on 23rd August 1945. In the next 2 decades, Italy achieves an 'economic miracle' started out by the input of millions of dollars in reconstruction money from the Marshall Plan, with GDP growing at dizzying rates of 6% per year. Rita, who was born into a proletarian family, the daughter of a Fiat factory worker and a laundress, suddenly hits the big time in 1962, when she'd just turned 17, winning a talent scout competition and then recording a 45 rpm disc for RCA Italiana which hits Number One in a few weeks.
Alberto Gagliardo tells of Pavone's meteoric rise in the Italian show biz. Only 20 days after winning the talent-competition Rita is introduced to the Italian Nation at TV's youth-oriented Saturday night show 'Alta Pressione', on the 2nd RAI channel where she is instantly exposed to 20,000,000 viewers. Rita's Irish Luck continues when, due to Mina's impossibility to command 'Studio Uno 62-63' due to her being pregnant, the top weekly variety-show is given to the 17 year-old new-face. Overnight, Rita sells 45 rpm's by the million; 'La partita di pallone', 'Come te non c'è nessuno', 'Alla mia età', 'Il ballo del mattone', 'Cuore' all reached Number One in the Italian charts.
By the end of 1963, Rita Pavone is already a millionaire with 2 albums ('Rita Pavone' & 'Non è facile avere 18 anni') that sold well. In October, Rita flies to Berlin and records (in German) 'Wenn ich ein Junge wär'' (If I were a boy) written especially for her - topping the German charts. She had already appeared in a French movie earlier in the year.
Gagliardo researches Rita's career meticulously. In the first half of 1964, Rita records a whole album at New York's RCA studios and go on to conquer Latin America in a victorious tour through Argentina and Brazil. Coming back to Italy in July she prepares herself to become an actress in an 8-part TV series called 'Il giornalino di Gian Burrasca', in which she plays the role of a 12 year-old devil-may-care boy who's 'imprisoned' in a boarding school. Italians would stop every Saturday night to watch the adventures of Giannino Stopanni.
In 1965, Rita continued touring the world. She wins Cantagiro in August with 'Lui', and comperes 'Stasera Rita', her own TV show. In early 1966, Rita commands 'Studio Uno 66' and hits the charts with 'Fortissimo'. In the second half of '66 she stars in the film 'Rita la zanzara', which is a tremendous box-office hit.
By 1967, things were starting to slow down for Rita. Since San Remo '66, new talents took over youth's preference. Caterina Caselli and a burgeoning beat-music scene with various British-like bands as The Rokes, Equipe 84, I Giganti are the new sensations. Four years after storming the music scene as the 'newest kid in the lot' Rita was already an old maid. She did Cantagiro again, but 'Questo nostro amore' which was actually the 'story of her life' as concerning the secret affair she'd been having with her manager Teddy Reno was only a middling hit. To add insult to the injury Rita leaves RCA Italiana and signs up with Ricordi. It was the worst career move possible. Her recording career never recovered from that.
When Teddy Reno (real name Ferruccio Ricordi) and Rita announced their engagement to marry the world fell on their heads. Gagliardo explains the troubles they went through for Mr Ricordi was a married man - even though separated since 1960 - in a Catholic land with no divorce. One could say Rita was defeated by Italy's reactionary press who turned against her with a vengeance. Nonetheless, she went ahead and married her Svengali on 15 March 1968, in a Catholic church in Lugano. To avoid being arrested for bigamy they stayed at different hotels then moving to Switzerland. Rita gave birth to Alex, on 6 August 1969, in London, after staying in the city for 3 months to qualify the baby to British citizenship.
In 1970, Rita returns to RCA Italiana, but could never repeat her early success. On 19 May 1974, she gives birth to her second son, Giorgio. By 1974-1975, Italy's 'miracolo economico' is all but over due to the world energy crisis that gave rise to OPEC. Alberto Gabliardo draws a parallel between the decline of Rita Pavone's career with that of Italy itself, that enters a new low and would never get out of the hole in which it buried itself. I sort of disagree. I reckon Pavone's career dwindled 7 years before Italy entered its zodical hell.
Through the 80s, 90s and the 21st century, Rita cannot hide her conservative politics. She dabbles in neo-fascist opinions and gets in trouble with progressives when she sides with Matteo Salvini and the right-wing mob condenming African refugees boats that nearly sunk off the coast of Sardinia, in July 2016 - they were rescued by Italian boat Aquarius. Stefano Pivato, who writes a telling preface for 'Storia Sociale di Rita Pavone' quotes Rita Pavone's arrogant tweet in which she berates the refugees saying: 'Ma farsi gli affari loro, mai?' which translates freely as: 'They only want to milk the system!'
African refugees being rescued off the coast of Sardinia.
Having seen how Rita Pavone veered to the right politically concerning migrants and refugees' precarious plight in 2018, let's go back to Gagliardo's book and see how Ferruccio Ricordi's own family would not have survived the Nazi-Fascist tyranny had they met people with the same uncompromising persuasion as Pavone's.
You see, Ferrucio's mother Paola Sanguinetti was from a Jewish industrial family who owned Arrigoni Industries. Giorgio Merk, his father, who had been forced to italianize his surname to Ricordi by Benito Mussolini's murderous regime, was a stakeholder in Sanguinetti's outfit. After 8 September 1943, when American troops occupied Southern Italy, the Nazis invaded the Northern part of the country leaving the Ricordi family in dire straits with no option but to go underground fearing for their very lives. They found in Ettore Sovera, an hotel owner, their saviour. Mr Sovera let the Ricordi family hide at Milano Marittima, one of his best hotels until the end of the war. One can read the whole saga on pages 10, 11 and 12.
Giorgio (Merk) Ricordi, Rita Pavone's father-in-law shows Nazi officials Arrigoni's production.
Giorgio Sanguinetti (brother of Paola Sanguinetti, Teddy Reno's mother) who owned Arrigoni Industries talks with Rachele Guidi, Mussolini's 2nd wife, during an official visit in the 1930s. Anna Maria Mussolini looks uncomfortably squashed among adults.
Newspaper clip with an Edict by the Fascist government banning the ownership of Italian companies by Jews. On the right: Ferruccio (Merk) Ricordi popularly known as Teddy Reno.
On 14 March 2019, hardly 8 months after Rita Pavone let it be known her opposition to African refugees approaching the Italian shores she puts her foot in her mouth again. She writes a note in her Facebook page disparaging Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish girl who became world famous in her fight against global warming (a struggle dismissed by the neo-fascist mob as fabrication) Pavone wrote she felt 'uneasy' looking at Thunberg's photo in the news... she thought Greta came out of a horror movie.
Thosands of Italians from the centre to the left of the political spectrum castigated Pavone for such a statement some hurling insults at her. Alberto Gagliardo's reaction to it was much milder than the uproar raised by the populace and more to the point.
Gagliardo compares two incidents at different times involving Pavone. He reminds the readers that in 1964, Rita Pavone was invited to sing at a function at the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in which legendary Palmiro Togliatti was present. Togliatti declared Pavone was a perfect impersonation of Youth and he liked her a lot. Togliatti was 72 years old and Pavone was 19.
Now, in 2019, 55 years later, when Pavone was 74 years old she passed judgement on Greta Thunberb, a 16 year-old climate activist in a very ungracious way, maybe deserving the tsunami of negative reactions poured against her from the Italian people.
thorough research about Pavone's charting history done by Alberto Gagliardo.
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