The last interview with Gino Paoli: «With Vanoni I learned to make love without feelings of guilt. On cocaine I wrote horrendous things”

A special day in the strict sense. Because the new episode (Wednesday on La7 at 9.15pm) of format by Aldo Cazzullo this time it is the story of the day that the deputy director of Courier he spent with Gino Paoli shortly before his death (last March 24th). A story that has the flavor of definitive testimony, his last confession on TV. An intimate, unpublished and surprising portrait, with exclusive interviews with his lifelong friends (Antonio Ricci, Renzo Piano, Gianni Morandi) and his great loves (Ornella Vanoni and Stefania Sandrelli).

Songs, testimonies and anecdotes that begin with memories of the war (“in 1940 Genoa was razed to the ground: not the right vision for a child”) and always unsettling judgments (“the Germans pissed me off as much as the Americans”). Success comes with difficulty, the turning point has a name: «I owe everything to Mogol, he had a crush on my songs, he carried them around as if they were his own». The cat was inspired by his Siamese: «He was called Ciacola, because he chatted a lot. But he was really chatting.” The sky in a room instead “it was dedicated to a prostitute who asked me to run away with her”.

The first meeting with Ornella Vanoni it’s like a bolt of lightning: «I immediately had the idea that there might be something between me and her. They said I was a fagot, they said she was a lesbian. One evening we wondered if it was true and went to spend the night in a terrible hotel. With her I learned to make love without feeling guilty, a legacy of my mother who was very religious: for her, making love without wanting children was a sin.” A sentimental and artistic union is born: «Endless it is the musical portrait of Ornella, but it took me a lot of time to find the right words, like the idea of ​​those large hands, suitable for cuddling.” Hence the scandal. He was married, wife and lover face it together. He comes out of it as only men can do, running away: “There was nothing to resolve, there was an imbecile who couldn’t decide, so I told them: you decide.”

Also the meeting with Stefania Sandrelli it tastes like love at first sight. She says: «I heard his songs and then I saw him on TV: I was immediately attracted and fell in love with him. The day I turned 15 I asked as a gift to be able to go to the Bussola to his concert. He noticed me and asked me to dance.”

Love at first sight and blows to the heart. True. Gino Paoli shoots himself. Yet he had everything: he wrote immortal songs, two of the most beautiful women in Italy were in love with him, he had a Porsche and a Ferrari in the garage: «The reason isn’t thereit is precisely because there is no reason either to live or to die that you can do something like this: it is practically impossible to understand.” Remember again: «I shot myself. Pum. But it seems that he is not dead… the bullet is still there, the doctors are surprised.” Easier – he says – to explain the suicide of others, “that of Tenco I think it’s related to the fact that he wasn’t healthy. When I found out I went to the nightclub and got drunk. Then I attached Lucio Dalla to the wallwho behaved like shit: the next day he was there, in Sanremo, singing You have to know how to lose.”

Tenco again. Cazzullo asks: «Is it true that he called you saying he was in bed with Stefania Sandrelli?». Yes, he confirms: «He did it because he didn’t want me to leave my wife. For him it was a gesture of friendship, but I didn’t really understand it as a gesture of friendship». At that point he broke up with both of them. The meeting with was noteworthy Celentano: «I had a conversation with him to join the Clan. It was very quick: Do you want to come in? he asked. Who’s in charge? I replied. Me, he said again. Then no.”

Songs, meetings, loves. And also drugs. «I tried cocaine and heroin. Then one day they arrested my pusher and I found myself dry, in the sense that I felt great. I reread a notebook I had written while I was on cocaine and it was horrible, filthy stuff. I stopped immediately and switched to Sangiovese.”

The afterlife is a doubt: «Sometimes I think it’s a kind of immense nothingness where I find myself in the middle of a desert; others I imagine it as a place where all my friends, all the people I have loved, are waiting for me.” And death? Is he afraid? “Absolutely not”.