One hundred years of Mike Bongiorno: a Milano Exhibition celebrating the icon of Italian television inaugurated
On the centenary of his birth, the exhibition “MIKE BONGIORNO 1924 – 2024" dedicated to the great presenter, protagonist of the history of TV, but also of that of our country, that the public will be able to discover from the September 17 to the November 17 at the headquarters of Royal Palace a Milano, the city that adopted him and that he loved from the very beginning. An unprecedented exhibition that bears witness to an epochal passage in the history of television and Italian customs, an immersive experience that will transform the exhibition space into a scenic box full of memories of his extraordinary career and will allow the spectator to come into contact with his personal history and with the public figure.
A place of memory and of the present at the same time, born from the research of materials, many of which exhibited for the first time, enriched by many 'rarities' granted for the occasion by the Mike Bongiorno Foundation: personal documents, unpublished photos, original scripts, artistic memorabilia and awards, objects and memories that unite several generations of admirers. The exhibition opens with a video contribution in which Aldo Grasso He talks about what Mike represented for him in the world of television.
The exhibition will have a great impact on the scenographic reconstructions which will contextualize some key moments in Mike's career but also in our society: an American radio studio from the 1940s, the TV room of a bar from the 1950s, a place that hosted many fans of the programs of the moment, the red and white booth of Rischiatutto, where it will be possible to become the contestant or the presenter and the wheel of La ruota della fortuna, reproduced in scale for the occasion.
The common thread of the journey is Biographical films, in which, through the presenter's own words, his history and that of the Italians from the 1920s to the present day will be retraced. Ample space will be given to Rai and Mediaset archive footage who actively collaborated on the project. His great passions will also be told, especially sports and the mountains.
The exhibition is promoted by the Municipality of Milano – Culture with the patronage of the Ministry of Culture, produced by Palazzo Reale Milano, Fondazione Mike Bongiorno and COR Creare Organizzare Realizzare with the collaboration of Allegria, with the participation of Rai and Mediaset, Main Sponsor Banca Patrimoni Sella & C. Curated by Nicolò Bongiorno and Alessandro Nicosia with the consultancy of Daniela Bongiorno. The exhibition is also made possible thanks to the sponsors Barilla, Pastificio Rana, DR Automobiles Groupe, WINDTRE, with the support of Archivio Storico Luce, Premium Partner StreeTvox.
Michael Nicholas Salvatore Good morning, a mother from Turin and an Italian-American father, was the first face of Italian public television, the man who literally turned it on on January 3, 1954 with the aim of entertaining the whole of Italy. From the very beginning he imposed himself as a model of common feeling, crossing generations and accompanying the viewer with his expressions that "made family" right from the start. His involved smile was the mirror of an intense life, which saw him as a partisan courier, imprisoned in San Vittore and then in concentration camps, then as a star of American radio between 1945 and 1953 until he became an icon of Italian TV. He kept the open and innovative look of America, exporting the quiz show.
An uninterrupted feeling with TV, the television studios were his home. The list of programs he conceived, created and hosted would be enough to give life to the schedules of the next century. Mike, ahead of his time, was able, in Lascia o doppia?, to turn characters taken from the street into heroes, inaugurating a phenomenon that would then become usual and successful in the television of the future. Millions of viewers followed the program in bars, at friends' houses and even in movie theaters that repeated the television signal, suspending the screening of films for the occasion. An extraordinary success up to the new proposals to shoot two masterpieces of our cinema: Totò, Lascia o doppia? and C'eravamo tanto amati. He was the protagonist of Rischiatutto, which he always considered his most successful program in which he was accompanied by a very young Sabina Ciuffini, the first assistant in the history of TV to be given a voice.
With the birth of commercial TV, he contributed to the success of private broadcasters, inventing and revolutionizing a new way of communicating. Silvio Berlusconi proposed that he become the symbol of TeleMilano 58 because he had realized that Mike, who knew the mechanisms of American TV well, was the only one who would be able to manage speed and commercial breaks. So he became the standard-bearer of a more modern and innovative TV.
It is also worth remembering the eleven editions of the Sanremo Festival that he hosted, from the 1997s to XNUMX. After his death, his programs were successfully re-proposed by other hosts.
In his last years he experienced a second professional youth, influenced by the relationship on the scene with an overwhelming Fiorello. Mike discovers himself ironic, funny and amused. The gags with Fiorello live on improvisation and laughter. The Honorary Master's Degree in Television, Cinema and Multimedia Production at IULM in Milano, was a well-deserved recognition that deeply moved him.
Mike was Mike, an iconic TV and radio host with a unique style, the most imitated inimitable in history who never separated life from TV, from pioneer to emperor of the quiz show, in the spontaneous aspiration to reach the heights, “always higher” in all fields. His memorable gaffes, with thrusts into self-irony accompanied by revealing smiles, have entered common language, making him a mirror for viewers to see themselves in.
The research work, which led to this exhibition, culminates in the twelve sections which is composed of: 1. Mike Bongiorno: an extraordinary story, 2. The sun of the Bongiornos, 3. Between New York and Turin, 4. An Italian-American and the War, 5. The Voice of America, 6. The return to Italy, the birth of TV, 7. The King of Quiz, 8. Rischiatutto, 9. The birth of commercial TV, 10. From the Wheel of Fortune to 11st century TV, 12. The phenomenology of Mike, XNUMX. Always higher.
In addition to television, his special relationship with Cinema, Photo Novels, Sports, The Sanremo Festival, The Myth, Advertising, The Family.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue published by Silvana Editorial which contains history, documents and images of an entire life; a choral memory that makes use of the testimonies of friends, colleagues, collaborators and critical contributions.
An engaging exploration that will offer the viewer the opportunity of a unique and special encounter with the presenter, will gather all the love that has manifested itself around him and will make us discover how his voice speaks to us today stronger than ever, impossible not to remember him with a smile and with the unforgettable "cheer!".
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