Most Talked About People in Italy in 2009 - part I

| Thu, 01/07/2010 - 10:14

A list of most popular people in Italy during 2009. Musicians, politicians and artists that we cannot forget.

1. Silvio Berlusconi

Love him or hate him – there seems to be no in-between – you have to give Mr Berlusconi credit for his staying power and his ability to bounce back. It has been quite a year for him, with an escort writing a book about him, his wife leaving him, his altercation with Italy’s judges and finally the attack on him on December 13th.
Yet his popularity has increased and last week he invited the MP Michaela Biancofiore to celebrate her thirty-ninth birthday at his villa near Milan. The pictures show that Mr Berlusconi is on the mend. He is reported to be relaxing by writing the lyrics for love songs to be released on a new CD which he is working on with the composer Mariano Apicella.

2. Piero Marrazzo

It has not been a happy year for the 51-year-old journalist-turned-politician who became Governor of Lazio in 2005. A married man with a family, Mr Marrazzo was allegedly filmed with a transsexual prostitute in Rome in July. The film is also reported to show a line of cocaine on a table. Mr Marrazzo was allegedly blackmailed over the existence of the film and rumours of another, even more damaging video led to his resignation in October. A transsexual prostitute involved in the case was found dead in her burned-out apartment in November.
The case is still under investigation and Mr Marrazzo’s wife has made a complaint about media invasion of her family’s privacy. It is possible that Mr Marrazzo will return to television work in the future.
Read more at: The Marrazzo affair - a guide.

3. Pasquale Simone Neri – The Hero of Giampilieri

Simone Neri, aged 29, was a Petty Officer, First Class, in the Italian Navy. He lost his life whilst trying to help others in the Messina mudslides of the night of 1st-2nd October. Simone led eight people to the safety of a rooftop in his home town of Giampilieri. Then he heard a child cry. He called his girlfriend, saying, “There’s a child crying. I am going to save him. Whatever happens, I love you.” But in moments everything was submerged in mud and debris. Simone’s body was found two days later.

4. Alda Merini

On November 1st Italy lost one of its greatest woman poets, Alda Merini. Often a troubled soul, Merini spent several periods in mental health institutions where, she said, she found “life”.

Yet her sense of humour did not fail her and she asked for a “hot man” for her seventy-third birthday. She received a visit from a male stripper and enjoyed the occasion immensely.

Merini was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize and her collection “La Terra Santa” [The Holy Land] is considered her greatest work. President Napolitano was among the many dignitaries who paid tribute to her.

5. Mike Bongiorno

Italy’s most famous television personality, Mike Bongiorno, died at the age of 85 on September 8th. Born in New York in 1924, Bongiorno moved to his mother’s home city of Turin at an early age. During the Second World War he joined the partisans and narrowly escaped death by a German firing squad. His American passport saved him.

It was Bongiorno who introduced the quiz show to Italian television, hosting “Lascia o Raddoppia”, Italy’s version of “The $64,000 Question” from 1955-59. His biggest hit was “Rischiatutto” [a version of “Jeopardy!”] in the 1970s and he later worked for Mr Berlusconi’s Mediaset network. However, in 2009 Mediaset did not renew his contract and Bongiorno signed a contract with Sky Italia. Mr Berlusconi denied that he had personally fallen out with Bongiorno over the contract and was one of the first to pay tribute to the star.
Bongiorno’s impact on Italian popular culture was acknowledged in a famous essay by Umberto Eco and Bongiorno received an honorary degree from Milan University in 2007.

6. Amanda Knox

Outside Italy the Knox case divides opinion sharply whereas within the country few doubt that she is guilty. There is, however, some sympathy for her, as we saw when Assisi shopkeepers sent her Christmas presents in prison.
Knox, convicted on December 4th along with her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, still claims that she is innocent. Meredith Kercher, who shared a house with Knox, was sexually assaulted and brutally murdered on the night of 1st-2nd November 2007. On November 6th 2007 Amanda Knox, her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito from Bari, Puglia and a local bar-owner, Patrick Diya Lumumba from the Democratic Republic of Congo, for whom Knox had worked, were arrested. Lumumba had been implicated by Knox. Later Lumumba was released and a third man, Rudy Guede, was arrested after an international manhunt. Guede was convicted of involvement in the murder during a fast-track trial. Knox had not helped herself by implicating Lumumba, by changing her story several times and by other erratic behaviour.

At the trial not even the Prosecutor was sure what the motive for murdering Kercher could have been but seems to have concluded that Knox and Kelcher hated each other because their personalities clashed. Knox was sentenced to 26 years’ imprisonment and Sollecito to 25. Guede, meanwhile, has had his sentence reduced from 30 to 16 years but he, too, maintains that he is innocent. Knox is going to appeal but this process cannot begin until the trial Judge submits his written explanation of the verdict. Amid much criticism of the trial procedure from her own country, Knox has stated that her trial was carried out “correctly”.
Read more at: The Knox trial - fact and hypothesis.

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The second part of "Most Talked About People in Italy in 2009" story will be published soon.