Renzo Arbore

Italian TV host, showman, singer, musician, film actor, and film director.

Arbore became nationally recognized as a radio anchor, together with Gianni Boncompagni, in the late 1960s, with shows such as "Bandiera gialla" (1965), "Per voi giovani" (1967), and "Alto Gradimento" (1970), increasingly marked by their ironical approach which later became one of their brands.

He debuted in Italian television with "Speciale per voi" (1969–1970), which included debates about singers of that period. His first great TV success was the surreal "L'altra domenica" ("The Other Sunday", 1976–1979), in which he launched numerous comedians including Mario Marenco, Isabella Rossellini and Roberto Benigni. Also very successful were "Quelli della notte" (1985), with Nino Frassica, Riccardo Pazzaglia, Maurizio Ferrini, and Roberto D'Agostino, and "Indietro tutta!" (1988), again with Frassica, which established Arbore as one of the most intelligent cult figures of Italian television.

In the meantime Arbore wrote and directed the movies "Il pap'occhio" (1980) and "FF.SS. – Cioè: ...che mi hai portato a fare sopra a Posillipo se non mi vuoi più bene?" (1983), both surreal stories featuring numerous actors launched by him and others friends, set in his adoptive city of Naples. Arbore also played and sang in numerous shows, notably in "Quelli della Notte" and "Indietro tutta!," whose music albums sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Italy.

An accomplished amateur clarinet player, in 1991 Arbore founded the Orchestra Italiana, a group of 15 artists with the aim to popularize Neapolitan music worldwide. The orchestra has toured in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. He was also director of the Umbria Jazz festival. His latest TV show is "Speciale per me - Meno siamo, meglio stiamo!" on Rai Uno.

Recently, he received the 2010 America Award from the Italy-USA Foundation.