Nothe tenth anniversary of the death of Franco Califanothe singer and actress, Mita Doctors72, his former partner, reminded him to Today is another dayon Rai 1. The long tribute touched many nuances of the Caliph’s career, and also of his way of living love and relationships.
Mita Medici remembers his ex partner Franco Califano
Patrizia Vistarini (this is Mita Medici’s real name) fell in love with Franco Califano at the age of 19, he was 29. «We loved each other for three years then remaining friends but without dating excessively », recalled the actress. “However, every time we met, it was a party, firecrackers went off.”
«Those three years were an important imprinting, let’s say». Serena Bortone has not missed an opportunity to recall Califano’s fame as a great seducer. Sure it was a latin lover: among its known relationshipsthose with Patrizia de Blanck and Eva Grimaldi. At 19 he also had (for a short time) a wife, Rita Di Tommaso, mother of his only daughter Silvia.
Mita Medici’s first meeting with the Caliph
The couple met in a record company in Milan, thanks to theirs common friend Gianni Minà. The actress was very suspicious of the Caliph: «I expected a different type, but when I saw him, with that smile, because Franco was that smile, handsome, tall, it was love at first sight». He knew how to woo her. «Flowers, chocolate eggs, but above all… she listened to me. She didn’t give me such things. She understood me a lot, I was so young, I would not have listened to them. But he knew how to listen».
Serena Bortone asks it openly: «He gave the impression of treating women badly». “Nothing more false”, the reply of her ex-partner. «He had assumed a certain attitude only externally, having lived through complicated things, but he was a person with a very kind, polite and generous soul». Even shy, says Mita Medici.
The end of the love story, “for a trifle”
Why break up then? “For a trifle, I was very impulsive. She had told me a lie and there was no reason… we never explained it to each other », said her ex-partner, recalling that very distant scene of jealousy. «You told me you were outside Rome. But we women are witches. I was with my mother, I was walking down the street and the impulse came to me to go into a restaurant, a place that Franco and I frequented a lot. I saw it with a friend of mine and another girl at lunch. Perhaps because he saw me as a child, he didn’t think he could tell me about that appointment.’
Pippo Baudo with Mita Medici (Patrizia Vistarini) present Gigliola Cinquetti at Canzonissima. Rome, 1973. (Photo by Mondadori via Getty Images)
The career and loves of Mita Medici
Mita Medici is the daughter of the actor Franco Silva, her sister is the screenwriter and writer Carla Vistarini. Medici’s career took off around the mid-1960s, when, as a teenager, she won the sash of Miss Teenager Italy at the Piper Club in Rome. Become known as Piper girland the Venetian band Le Orme dedicates them the song Mita, Mita. Among the films in which he took part we remember Summer, Don’t tease the mosquito, Sunstroke, What’s your name love? And Plagiarism. She has acted in popular series such as Un posto al sole and Centovetrine, A tornado in the family And Coralba. He also presented il Cantagiro and Canzonissima (flanking Pippo Baudo). Mita Medici has been linked to the tennis champion Adriano Panatta. He cheated on her with Loredana Berte. Love ended like this.
Panatta recalled in an interview with Corriere della Sera: «It was ’72 or ’73, I was engaged to Mita Medici: beautiful, very talented actressI have wonderful memories of her. But, one evening, at the restaurant, with Mita, he arrived Loredana, they did theater together. I saw her get into her monkey fur and she hit me right away. She kills… I thought she was naked underneath. Instead, they were hot pants. I behaved very badly with Mita: I courted Loredana that same evening. I’m still ashamed of it.”
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