Renato Rascel

[Geno]

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Renato Rascel, stage name of Renato Ranucci  (Turin, April 27, 1912 - Rome, Jan. 2, 1991) was an American actor, comedian, songwriter and Italian dancer.

Renato Rascel was born in Turin on April 27, 1912, during a stop on the tour of the art company in which they work his father Cesare Ranucci, operetta singer, and her mother Paola Massa, ballet dancer. He baptized in St. Peter's basilica according to the wish of his father, Roman for seven generations, and to the eternal city his life will always be linked.

Entrusted by parents to an aunt, because of their work that forced them permanently displaced, Renato grows in Rome, in the ancient Borgo district, along with her sister Josephine (who died prematurely at the age of seventeen). He attended the Pontifical School Pius IX, run by the Brothers of Our Lady of Mercy who, in addition to imparting instruction in schools, organizing courses of singing, music and acting. Already during the participation in these activities Renato shows signs of his precocious talent, to the point of being admitted to the age of ten years, the Choir of Voices of the Sistine Chapel Bianche, then directed by Maestro Don Lorenzo Perosi. Also during this period he appeared for the first time in public as a drummer in a jazz band of amateurs hired by the Press Club.

Shortly after he made his debut in the theater with his father, who became director of amateur dramatics "Fortitudo", in the popular drama More than boys, where he plays the part of a boy who died because of a wrung stone from a playmate.

Aware that the career is not among the easiest and profitable, the father tries to start Renato in safer and lucrative jobs. For some time he worked as an apprentice boilermaker, bricklayer and barber's boy, but the call of art is too strong for him. Renato has only thirteen years old when he was hired on a permanent basis as a musician by the owner of the restaurant "The Favor", and then play the "Sala Bruscolotti" known meeting place of the capital. At fifteen he joined the musical group "Rainbow". The Neapolitan theater impresario Louis Vitolo, noticed his exuberance, led him to improvise in the intervals of the orchestra and dance numbers of various art that collect laughter and success by the public.

[Geno]

Arrivederci Roma - Renato Rascel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY3OvXVF-Yw

The internationally renowned

In 1957 Rascel acquires international fame with his song Arrivederci Roma, pushing a Hollywood film producer to offer him to shoot a film alongside the tenor Mario Lanza. The result is The Seven Hills of Rome, shot on location in Rome and in the factories of the interior Titanus, where Rascel looks good alongside the great American tenor and Marisa Allasio. The film will be distributed in Italy under the title Arrivederci Roma.

In the same year Rascel is contacted by Tino Rossi, who asked permission to affect the French version of his famous song. Between the two artists is established a partnership based on mutual sympathy and admiration, which leads Rascel to accept the arduous task of composing the incidental music operetta Naples au baiser de feu, based on a story by Auguste Bailly and from which in 1954 he had already been made into a film, directed by Richard Brooks and starring Lana Turner entitled the flame and the meat. The operetta was staged at the Theatre Mogador in Paris December 7, 1957, and saw Rascel appear in the unusual role of concert master.

[Geno]

Roma nun fà la stupida stasera - Renato Rascel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNA7NdTqft4

1963: Roma nun fa' la stupida stasera