On
10th October her first son, Giovanni is born. It's a traditional birthing,
at home, in Verona. Giovanni's birth is her greatest success of that year.
In 1980 Gigliola's career abruptly stops. Gigliola moves to Rome with her
husband, near Campo de'Fiori and its artistic activity temporarily ceases:
no records, no tours, no TV shows. Though the press still talks about her
new life. On
10th October her first son, Giovanni is born. It's a traditional birthing,
at home, in Verona. Giovanni's birth is her greatest success of that year.
In 1981 Gigliola goes back on TV, not as a singer but as host and director
of some journalistic reports for the Sunday "Linea Verde", hosted by Federico
Fazzuoli. In that year starts also a great revival of the sixties, in which
Gigliola plays a significant part. "Dio, come ti amo" is chosen by the first
channel of the State TV to start a series dedicated to Italian movies from
the sixties called "Italian Graffiti". From then on it will be broadcast several
times. Gianni Ravera, chief organizer of the Castrocaro Song Contest, where
Gigliola had started her career, wants her as host of the 1981 edition. Gigliola
interviews all partecipants, among which Zucchero and Eros Ramazzoti at their
first experience. On Saturday 10th December she starts a new programme: "Io
sabato" with the journalist Piero Pansa. It's a 90 minutes talk-show of which
Gigliola sings also the signature tune "Bella questa Italia". On side B of
the record a song written by her and the composer Renato Pareti: "Gli sfrattati".
"Io sabato" goes on for three months. During the programme Gigliola interviews
many VIPs of the show business like the classical dancer Carla Fracci and,
in the London studios of the EMI discographic press, Paul McCartney.
In 1982 it's still revival of the sixties and Gigliola stars as one of its
main characters. She is often on TV taking part to "Domenica in", "Bis", (TV
quiz hosted by Mike Bongiorno), then to "Movie movie" with Gianni Morandi.
Her songs are included in several compilations as "30x60" ("This is my prayer",
"La rosa nera" and "Tomorrow") and "30x60 vol.2" ("Dio, come ti amo"). Gigliola
has also an Italian tour with her orchestra. 
During one of her concerts she meets Enzo Tortora who proposes her to run
the musical section in the next edition of his show "Portobello", starting
on 19th November at 20:30 on the second channel of the State TV. The musical
numbers of the show include singing and dancing live with two dancers. From
the show Gigliola records the LP "Portoballo", a real history of folk dancing.
Such LP is the last one recorded by Gigliola for CGD Music, her discographic
press house since the beginning. Her contract with CGD still remains one of
the longest in the history of Italian music.
"Portoballo" is Gigliola's greatest success in 1983. The show lasts for
six months and Gigliola appears in it as a versatile artist, performing in
many different dances as charleston, polka, mazurka, hully-gully, can-can
and many more.
"Portoballo", however, is not her only success. Gigliola records as chorus
singer the song "Amico è", hymn to friendship sung by Dario Baldan Bembo and
Caterina Caselli, with her three other exceptional chorus singers: Ornella
Vanoni, Giuni Russo and Pupo. The song is signature tune of the TV quiz "Superflash",
hosted by Mike Bongiorno. At first the names of the chorus singers are kept
secrets, since a contest asks the audience to guess who they are. Mike Bongiorno,
at the end of the contest, invites Gigliola as guest and she presents a medley
of song and dances from "Portoballo" with her two dancers .
In 1983 the revival operation moves to the seventies. CGD includes "Door of
the sun" in its compilation 30x70. Gigliola is invited to the programme "Bliz",
hosted by Gianni Minà, as example of one of the artists who have given fame
all over the world to Italian music. In 1983 two new compilations, wholly
dedicated to Gigliola are published. Their titles are "Non ho l'età" and "Alle
porte del sole". The first one, reprinted till now, includes several rare
hits as "Penso alle cose perdute" and the beautiful "Sfiorisci bel fiore"
by Enzo Jannacci, that Gigliola had not sung anymore since their first publication.
1984
is an year of "private" success for Gigliola. On 22nd August in an hospital
in Verona she gives birth to her second son, Costantino. The press gives attention
to the fact and CGD takes advantage of the occasion to reprint the folk LP
"Cantando con gli amici". But the real scoop comes at the end of the year:
in 1985 Gigliola is going back to the Sanremo Song Contest to take part in
the competition.
And
so it happens. Gigliola is convinced by the discographic manager Freddy Naggiar
to record the single "Chiamalo Amore" for Baby Records Music and to bring
it to the Sanremo Song Contest. According to all previsions by critics and
by the audiance Gigliola is one of the possible winners. At the end of the
contest the press will give her the title of "lady of music". And
she appears as a real lady. On the first evening of the contest she wears
a haircut by the famous hairdresser of the stars Rolando Elisei which is inspired
to the romantic atmosphere of the song. Her look for the last evening is fresh
and dynamic. After the first pertial counting of the votes she is first, at
the end of the contest she gains the third position and the special award
of the weekly magazine "Radiocorriere TV" as the most representative
character in the history of the contest for her many hits and for the new,
and still winning one.
"Chiamalo amore" is a new hit for Gigliola. Many Tv programmes want her as
a guest, but she chooses radio instead. The second radio State channel offers
her to host a programme: "Gigliola, Gigliola" on Sunday morning, from
11:00 to 12:00 starting on 30th June till 12th September. During the programme
Gigliola goes again through all the steps of her career.
She has no similar project on TV. It was voiced of her as possible host of
the show "Italia Sera" but in the end the choice falls on Enrica Bonaccorti.
On 1986 Gigliola seems to leave her career again. She takes only part to
a few TV shows but is widely remembered in the book "Il Festival di Sanremo
da Nilla Pizzi... ai Ricchi e Poveri", a history of the Sanremo Song Contest
inspired by the programme "Le mille bolle blu" by Giancarlo Governi. She takes
part to "Il bello della diretta", show hosted by da Loretta Goggi and on 5th
June to "Pentathlon", a game show hosted by Mike Bongiorno for a particular
reason: from 22nd May on the campion is a young law student, Massimo Giacomazzi,
who has chosen Gigliola's career as subject to be examined about during the
game. Mike Bongiorno invites her on 5th June and Gigliola dedicates to Giacomazzi
her "Chiamalo amore".
On 16th July the weekly magazine "Oggi" publishes on the cover a photo in
which Gigliola appears bare-breasted, during a holiday at the seaside with
her son Giovanni, her husband and her two nephews. On the contrary on the
weekly magazine "Intimità" she stars as a top model for high class fashion.
From 29th June to 21 September Gigliola hosts on the second radio State channel
"Gigliola, Gigliola bis", second edition of the programme she has hosted the
previous year, with the same success of audience. One of her song is also
included in the compilation "Donne in hit parade", dedicated to 13 important
female singers of Italian music.
At
the end of the year she takes part to another song contest: "Premiatissima",
hosted by Johnny Dorelli on Canale 5, a sort of revival of old "Canzonissima".
The song she presents is the beautiful "Una donna distante" by Mario Castelnuovo.
She passes all selections but is eliminated just before the final one by Rosanna
Fratello for the second time in her career. However Rosanna Fratello had chosen
a more consolidated hit of the sixties: "Amore scusami".
Between the selections for "Premiatissima" Gigliola hosts again the Castrocaro
Song Contest with Daniele Piombi and takes part to several TV shows, always
singing "Una donna distante". Her succes goes on even in France with the show
"Champs-Elysèes", dedicated to the recently deceased singer and author Joe
Dassin. Gigliola pays her tribute to him singing his "Les petits pains au
chocolat", till now left unrecorded.
A source of criticism is however her partecipation to "Maurizio Costanzo show"
on Canale 5 on 21st November. Among the other guests Marco Pannella, leader
of the Radical Party, which at the time underwent serious financial problems.
Gigliola accepts to become a member of the party to sustain it, as many other
VIPs had done, and in the following year will be ferociously attacked for
that reason from the newspaper "L'Arena", the main newspaper in
her hometown, Verona.
Gigliola
answers calmly to the attack from the pages of the weekly magazine "Gente".
Peace will be made only some years later, when "L'Arena" offers
her a five-year contract for a column every Wednesday on the cultural page
with the title"Pensieri al video".
On 2nd February 1987 Gigliola takes part to the show "Piccoli fans" and right
after she's back to the Sanremo Song Contest, this time as a journalist for
the TV show "Uno mattina" and several newspapers as "La Nazione" and "Gazzetta
del Sud". During the contest a poll places "This is my prayer" among
the most loved songs of the previous editions. On the last evening of the
contest dies in hospital the famous singer Claudio Villa. In his autobiographical
book "Una vita stupenda" hed had also remembered Gigliola in quite a touching
way.
"Fabbri Editori" publishes in 80 issues an encyclopedia of Italian
music called "La canzone italiana", dedicated to all singers who had made
Italian music wordly famous. Of course Gigliola has a place in it.
She also takes part to TV shows and programmes. On Sunday 1st March she is
guest on Federico Fazzuoli in the programme "Linea verde" singing "La domenica
andando alla messa" and "Una donna distante"; on 13th April she interviews
Enzo Tortora, who had been sentenced to jail and recognized innocent after
years of trials, for the journalistic programme "Tivù Tivù" by Arrigo Levi,
broadcast by Canale 5. Her career as a singer is remembered by Loretta Goggi
during the show "Canzonissime" during the evening dedicated to CGD.
In the Summer "Eva Express" publishes again a photo of Gigliola at the seaside
topless sunbathing. For the third year in a row she hosts the programme "Gigliola,
Gigliola", from 28th June to 20th September on the second radio Sate channel.
This time she writes all textes hersel and, as signature tune, she sings "Una
donna distante".
On 27th July Gigliola is invited by Gianni Mina as guest to the programme
"Campioni, le più belle partite della nostra vita", on the most famous football
matches in history. She takes part as most representative character of the
year 1964, year in which the Champions League final match between Inter and
Real Madrid was played on 27 May. With her the famous football champion Sandro
Mazzola.
On 2nd September the first channel of the State TV broadcasts the movie "Testadirapa",
till now never reproposed; on 3rd Novembre the private channel Italia 1 answers
with "Dio, come ti amo"; on the 5th November Gigliola is guest of Loretta
Goggi in the show "Ieri, Goggi, domani" receiving positive compliments by
the journalist Giampiero Mughini who shows the audience some of her old TV
recordings. Italia 1 on 19th December broadcasts again "Dio, come ti amo".
In 1988 the Sanremo Song Contest is preceded by a lot of articles on the
press about all previous editions. All magazines publish special issues telling
the history of the contest, talking about past scandals, rediscovering old
photos, hit parades and record covers. Each magazine has at least an entry
about Gigliola, even if that year she doesn't take part in the competition,
pursuing insted her career as journalist and TV hostess.
On 5th March she partecipates to the "Raffaella Carrà Show" on Canale 5. The
show, anticipating the celebrations for Women's Day invites many women who
have become famous in different fields as the journalist Paola Fallaci, the
entrepreneur Marisa Brambilla, the actress Ottavia Piccolo and the fencing
champion Dorina Vaccaroni. Gigliola introduces herself as painter, since painting
has aleays been her first love after singing, presenting some of her artwork.
A poll by the weekly magazine "TV Sorrisi e Canzoni" includes Gigliola among
the most famous Italian singers. The results indicate her as more famous than
even Orietta Berti, Milva, Raffaella Carrà, Rita Pavone, Patty Pravo and Ornella
Vanoni. On 18th May Enzo Tortora dies. On that occasion Rete 4 broadcasts
again the interview Gigliola had had with him the previous year for the programme
"Tivù Tivù".
On
29th October Gigliola is back to the Castrocaro Song Contest as special guest
for its 30th birthday. Contemporarily she celebrates a 25-year-long career
for which "TV Sorrisi e Canzoni" awards her the "Telegatto D'Oro".
"Dio, come ti amo" is broadcast again on 22nd December, two days later Gigliola's
41st birthday. Some time later Gigliola announces her partecipation to the
Sanremo Song Contest for the following year.
Before going back to Sanremo Gigliola takes part to "TG l'una" on 12th February
with a living myth of Italian cinema: Alberto Sordi. The host of the programme,
Giuseppe Breveglieri, compares her to Gianni Morandi as a character who has
gone through different generations without assuming a particular time dimension.
Then she is guest of Giovanni Minoli in "Mixer" to tell him what
has represented for her the Sanremo Song Contest.
And during the contest she charms again her audience with a new look, very
refined and sexy. She enters the competition surrounded by a lot of friends
who act as chorus singers for her song: "Ciao", full of South American rythms.
She sings dancing with her "boys" and wearing a black tailor jacket with a
denim mini skirt. The press defines her one of the best-dressed singers in
rhe contest, though censorship had denied her a sexier and more revealing
dress (as the weekly magazine "Stop" says after the contest). The song doesn't
sound convincing, but Gigliola does. The press has only favourable comments:
Paola Fallaci sees her as the real image of the woman manager of herself;
Mario Luzzatto Fegis underlines the effectivness of her coreography admitting
that nobody could expect such a sexy image more than 20 years after her beginning;
Michela Tamburino of the daily newspaper "Il Tempo" recognizes to be surprised
by her new look; Giorgio Consolini from the pages of the weekly magazine "Stop"
congratulates her for her brilliant shape.
Gigliola's partecipations to the Sanremo Song Contest are not any more considered
as normality, as it happened in the 60s or in the 70s, and commented as such.
Now she is treated as a veteran, as part of the history of the competition,
as a great lady, as a myth of Italian music or as one of the standing stones
of the contest. Gigliola herself says that, in this edition, she has been
treated as a real lady of the Italian music: flowers, telegrams, letters and
love from everybody.
Gigliola signs also a new contract with WEA but doesn't record a new LP. Her
new record his just a collection of her previous hit with the addition of
"Ciao". Its title is "E inoltre ciao".
On 27th February all partecipants to the Sanremo Song Contest leave for a
world tour called "Sanremo in the world". Gigliola's success is great especially
in Tokyo on 1st March. Back to Italy she is invited to several TV shows and
sings "Parlez-moi d'amour" at the Argentina theatre of Rome in occasion of
the Braille award. It's the first time she performs in the town where she
lives. She takes part as a guest for a whole week to the programme "Via Teulada
66", hosted by Loretta Goggi and to "Una notte d'estate", show for the assignation
of the 1989 Fiuggi award, which sees as guests even Giulio Andreotti and Sofia
Loren.
She finds also the time to attend the marriage of her friend Roberto Vecchioni.
His bride, Daria, was among her chorus singers in "Ciao".
On 16th July Gigliola starts her Summer tour through Italy from San Pietro
a Maida in Calabria, on 3rd August she is interviewed by the daily newspaper
"La Repubblica". Among the songs presented during the tour "La vie en rose",
till now unrecorded. The date of her tour in Verona is also recorded by the
State TV in a show called "Gigliola Cinquetti torna a Verona" that is broadcast
on 13rh November at 23:15 as a tribute to a character so loved by the audience.
The concert starts "Casta Diva", an old recording by the opera singer
Maria Callas. Gigliola will explain later to Claudio Lippi, during the TV
show "Ci vediamo", that Maria Callas had been the only woman she would have
taken as a model.
Gigliola's
hit in 1989, however, is not "Ciao", but "Per te Armenia",
written by Charles Aznavour ed sung by a large group of singers as aid to
the victims of a recent earthquake in Armenia. During the same year she records
a new version of "Those were the days" and presents it at the contest
"Una rotonda sul mare". She is eliminated just before the final selection
but receives compliments from Nino Ferrer and from a young girl from the audience,
interviewed by the programme host Red Ronnie, who didn't know the song before
but liked it.
Gigliola is also invited by Enzo Jannacci to take part to one of his concert
during the tour to celebrate his 30-year-long career. Red Ronnie asks why
and Jannacci answers that Gigliola had taken all over the world one of his
songs: "Sfiorisci bel fiore". Gigliola complains, facetiously, that Red Ronnie
is not really an expert on the music of the sixties...
On 25th October Gigliola is guest star at the Castrocaro Song Contest, whose
31st edition is hosted by Fabrizio Frizzi. On that occasion she sings again
"Le strade di notte", the song she had presented 26 years before winning the
contest. During the show are broadcast again some parts of the interviews
she had made years before to Zucchero and Eros Ramazzotti at their first experience
with the contest.
From the 20th november on, for a whole week, she is guest of Claudio Lippi
in the TV show "Ci vediamo". With her, remembering all steps of her career,
Massimo Giacomazzi. At the end of the year Gigliola takes part to a competition
again. In 1990 the Sanremo Song Contest celebrates its 40th birthday. Canale
5 anticipates all State celebrations with rhe show "C'era una volta il festival",
hosted by Mike Bongiorno. The show is a contest between many hits of the previous
editions. The show his successful but the press highly criticizes the habit
of tossing to theaudience old singers, who had left the show business years
before and whose shape is not definitely brilliant. Of course that's not Gigliola's
case. She appears in a great shape with a new version of "This is my
prayer". However she doesn't pass the first selection since the audience
general taste is oriented towards the songs of the most recent years. Nilla
Pizza, with "Grazie dei fior" suffers the same fate placing her song just
one position above the last.
