Gianni Lunadei
Encyclopedia
Gianni Lunadei was a versatile Italian Argentine
actor best known for his work in Argentine comedy.
in 1938. His mother was a seamstress and his father a brick mason, and the young Lunadei first developed an interest in acting when at age five, his parents introduced him to the cinema
and theater. The family struggled during World War II, however, and his mother emigrated to Buenos Aires
, Argentina
, where Gianni arrived in 1950, followed by his father shortly afterward.
He debuted in the local theater in 1954 playing George in a local production of Arthur Miller
's All My Sons
, and was later cast in Sean O'Casey
's The Shadow of a Gunman
and Anton Chekhov
's Platonov
. His career on the stage flourished, and he worked as a resident actor in the National Comedy
for eleven years, and in the General San Martín Theatre
for six. Beyond the stage, he had a turn as Count Dracula
in a 1968 made-for-television special starring veteran horror film
actor Narciso Ibáñez Menta
. Among Lunadei's notable stage roles from this era include those in Peter Weiss
' Marat/Sade
, Carlo Goldoni
's Servant of Two Masters
, as well as the title role in Pantaleon
, a Comedia dell'arte work by Argentine playwright Villanueva Cosse. This latter role won Lunadei the city of Mar del Plata
's "Star of the Sea" in 1975 with co-star China Zorilla. He earned a Molière
Prize for this role, and won a second one in 1977. He married actress Stella Maris Lanzani, and they had four children.
Lunadei ventured into Argentine cinema in 1976 with a minor part in Carlos Galettini
's tragedy Juan que reía
(Juan Who Once Laughed). He had a leading role in Manuel Antin
's Allá lejos y hace tiempo (Long Ago and Far Away, 1978); but in subsequent years he became known for portraying manic characters in picaresque comedy films and on television. Lunadei explained in a 1984 interview that his childhood dream had been to be a clown
. One notable exception was his role as the unscrupulous financier Arteche in Juan José Jusid
's tragicomic Plata dulce (Sweet Money, 1982), whose title referred to the economic bubble
and collapse caused by José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz
's financial deregulation
policies of the late 1970s.
Lunadei was cast by comedy writer Juan Carlos Mesa
in the sitcom, Mesa de noticias (News Desk). The prime time
show, which premiered on ATC in December 1983, was set in a struggling network news
program, where Lunadei played de la Nata, an obsequious correspondent who showered the hapless programming director (Mesa) with compliments such as "benemérito señor director, le pertenezco" ("I'm at your disposal, my honorable director"), while sabotaging coworkers and dispensing ad hominem attacks such as "infeliz!" ("loser!") and his trademark interjection: "SHAQ!" (typically with a chopping motion of the hand). The sitcom was a success and ran until New Year's Eve 1987, appealing to audiences of an unusually varied demographic.
Lunadei returned to cinema in a 1987 lampoon of profiteering in the medical industry, La clínica del Doctor Cureta, and in a 1988 film adaptation of cartoonist Horacio Altuna
'a Las Puertitas del señor López. Lunadei earned a Konex Award
for lifetime achievement in comedy in 1991. He then joined Mesa in a spin-off
of Mesa de Noticias, El gordo y el flaco (akin to Laurel and Hardy
), which aired from 1991 to 1994, and appeared in a number of sitcoms in subsequent years.
Lunadei's often manic on-screen persona belied his struggle with clinical depression
, however. Separated from his wife, he began a relationship with television actress Perla Caron in 1993, and in 1997, moved to her Belgrano
home. He continued to work despite his worsening condition, and had memorable roles such as in the mystery
mini-series, Archivo negro (Black File), for which he was nominated for a Martín Fierro Award in 1997, and in the film-noir El inquietante caso de José Blum (The Troubling Case of José Blum). Alone in Perla Caron's home, he shot himself with a .32 caliber pistol on June 17, 1998. Lunadei was interred in the Actors' Pantheon at La Chacarita Cemetery
.
The respected stage, television and film actor was renowned in the local entertainment industry for his improvisation
al skills. A production company operated by Juan Carlos Mesa and others announced that a remake
of Mesa de noticias was being considered; Mesa himself expressed that "bringing back a hit such as that inevitably leads to criticism that it's somehow not the same, and it wouldn't be the same: Gianni is no longer here."
Italian Argentine
An Italian Argentine is a person born in Argentina of Italian ancestry. It is estimated up to 25 million Argentines have some degree of Italian descent...
actor best known for his work in Argentine comedy.
Life and work
Lunadei was born in RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
in 1938. His mother was a seamstress and his father a brick mason, and the young Lunadei first developed an interest in acting when at age five, his parents introduced him to the cinema
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and theater. The family struggled during World War II, however, and his mother emigrated to Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, where Gianni arrived in 1950, followed by his father shortly afterward.
He debuted in the local theater in 1954 playing George in a local production of Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller
Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...
's All My Sons
All My Sons
All My Sons is a 1947 play by Arthur Miller. The play was twice adapted for film; in 1948, and again in 1987.The play opened on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre in New York City on January 29, 1947, closed on November 8, 1947 and ran for 328 performances...
, and was later cast in Sean O'Casey
Seán O'Casey
Seán O'Casey was an Irish dramatist and memoirist. A committed socialist, he was the first Irish playwright of note to write about the Dublin working classes.- Early life:...
's The Shadow of a Gunman
The Shadow of a Gunman
The Shadow of a Gunman is a 1923 play by Seán O'Casey. It centers on the mistaken identity of a building tenant who is thought to be an IRA assassin....
and Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
's Platonov
Platonov (play)
Platonov is the name in English given to an early, untitled play written in Russian by Anton Chekhov in 1878. It was the first large-scale drama by Chekhov written specifically for Maria Yermolova, rising star of Maly Theatre...
. His career on the stage flourished, and he worked as a resident actor in the National Comedy
Cervantes Theatre (Buenos Aires)
The Cervantes National Theatre in Buenos Aires is the national stage and comedy theatre of Argentina.-History:The Cervantes Theatre of Buenos Aires owes its existence, in part, to the 1897 relocation to Argentina of Spanish theatre producer María Guerrero and her company, who popularized...
for eleven years, and in the General San Martín Theatre
Teatro General San Martín
The Teatro General San Martin is an important public theater in Buenos Aires, located on Corrientes Avenue and adjacent to the cultural center of the same name...
for six. Beyond the stage, he had a turn as Count Dracula
Count Dracula
Count Dracula is a fictional character, the titular antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula and archetypal vampire. Some aspects of his character have been inspired by the 15th century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler...
in a 1968 made-for-television special starring veteran horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
actor Narciso Ibáñez Menta
Narciso Ibáñez Menta
Narciso Ibáñez Menta was a Spanish theatre, film, and television actor.Born in Langreo, Asturias, Spain, Menta made his first stage appearance in 1919 at the Teatro La Comedia of Buenos Aires. He worked in both theatre and film in Argentina until 1964, when he returned to Spain and developed a...
. Among Lunadei's notable stage roles from this era include those in Peter Weiss
Peter Weiss
Peter Ulrich Weiss was a German writer, painter, and artist of adopted Swedish nationality. He is particularly known for his plays Marat/Sade and The Investigation and his novel The Aesthetics of Resistance....
' Marat/Sade
Marat/Sade
The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade , almost invariably shortened to Marat/Sade, is a 1963 play by Peter Weiss...
, Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...
's Servant of Two Masters
Servant of Two Masters
Servant of Two Masters is a comedy by the Venetian playwright Carlo Goldoni written in 1743. Goldoni originally wrote the play at the request of actor Antonio Sacco, one of the great Truffaldinos in history...
, as well as the title role in Pantaleon
Pantaleon
Pantaleon was a Greek king who reigned some time between 190–180 BCE in Bactria and India. He was a younger contemporary or successor of the Greco-Bactrian king Demetrius, and is sometimes believed to have been his brother and/or subking...
, a Comedia dell'arte work by Argentine playwright Villanueva Cosse. This latter role won Lunadei the city of Mar del Plata
Mar del Plata
Mar del Plata is an Argentine city located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, south of Buenos Aires. Mar del Plata is the second largest city of Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" had apparently the sense of "sea of the Río de la Plata region" or "adjoining sea to the Río de la Plata"...
's "Star of the Sea" in 1975 with co-star China Zorilla. He earned a Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
Prize for this role, and won a second one in 1977. He married actress Stella Maris Lanzani, and they had four children.
Lunadei ventured into Argentine cinema in 1976 with a minor part in Carlos Galettini
Carlos Galettini
Carlos Galettini is a Silver Condor nominated Argentine film director, film producer and screenplay writer.He worked mainly in the Cinema of Argentina. He directed Besos en la Frente in 1996.-Footnotes:...
's tragedy Juan que reía
Juan que reía
Juan que reía is a 1976 Argentine film.-Cast:Luis Brandoni, Ana María Campoy, Enrique Pinti, Luisina Brando, Federico Luppi, Gianni Lunadei...
(Juan Who Once Laughed). He had a leading role in Manuel Antin
Manuel Antín
Manuel Antín is an Argentine film director and screenwriter.Manuel Antin was born in Las Palmas, Chaco Province, in 1926. He first wrote for Argentine television in 1956 and made his directorial debut in 1962 with his first film: La Cifra Impar based on a tale of Julio Cortázar...
's Allá lejos y hace tiempo (Long Ago and Far Away, 1978); but in subsequent years he became known for portraying manic characters in picaresque comedy films and on television. Lunadei explained in a 1984 interview that his childhood dream had been to be a clown
Clown
Clowns are comic performers stereotypically characterized by the grotesque image of the circus clown's colored wigs, stylistic makeup, outlandish costumes, unusually large footwear, and red nose, which evolved to project their actions to large audiences. Other less grotesque styles have also...
. One notable exception was his role as the unscrupulous financier Arteche in Juan José Jusid
Juan José Jusid
Juan José Jusid is an Argentine film director and screenwriter.He started his professional career as an actor, Puppeteer and stage photographer in the 1960s then switched to film studies at the Association of Short Film Directors.He turned director and screenwriter in 1968 and has directed...
's tragicomic Plata dulce (Sweet Money, 1982), whose title referred to the economic bubble
Economic bubble
An economic bubble is "trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance with intrinsic values"...
and collapse caused by José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz
José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz
José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz was an Argentine executive and policy maker. He served as Minister of the Economy under de facto President Jorge Rafael Videla between 1976 and 1981, and shaped economic policy during the self-styled National Reorganization Process military dictatorship.-Early...
's financial deregulation
Big Bang (financial markets)
The phrase Big Bang, used in reference to the sudden deregulation of financial markets, was coined to describe measures, including abolition of fixed commission charges and of the distinction between stockjobbers and stockbrokers on the London Stock Exchange and change from open-outcry to...
policies of the late 1970s.
Lunadei was cast by comedy writer Juan Carlos Mesa
Juan Carlos Mesa
Juan Carlos Mesa is a well-known Argentine humorist, screenwriter and director.-Life and work:Juan Carlos Mesa was born in Córdoba, Argentina in 1930...
in the sitcom, Mesa de noticias (News Desk). The prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
show, which premiered on ATC in December 1983, was set in a struggling network news
News broadcasting
News broadcasting is the broadcasting of various news events and other information via television, radio or internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either produced locally in a radio studio or television studio newsroom, or by a broadcast network...
program, where Lunadei played de la Nata, an obsequious correspondent who showered the hapless programming director (Mesa) with compliments such as "benemérito señor director, le pertenezco" ("I'm at your disposal, my honorable director"), while sabotaging coworkers and dispensing ad hominem attacks such as "infeliz!" ("loser!") and his trademark interjection: "SHAQ!" (typically with a chopping motion of the hand). The sitcom was a success and ran until New Year's Eve 1987, appealing to audiences of an unusually varied demographic.
Lunadei returned to cinema in a 1987 lampoon of profiteering in the medical industry, La clínica del Doctor Cureta, and in a 1988 film adaptation of cartoonist Horacio Altuna
Horacio Altuna
Horacio Altuna is an Argentine comics artist.-Biography:Born in Córdoba, Altuna made his debut in the comics world in 1965 for publisher Editorial Columbia...
'a Las Puertitas del señor López. Lunadei earned a Konex Award
Konex Award
Konex Foundation awards, or simple Konex awards are cultural awards from the Konex Foundation to Argentine cultural personalities.Created in 1980, where conceived as a way to reward the Argentine personalities and institutions of different fields, as well as to stimulate the beginners.Even though...
for lifetime achievement in comedy in 1991. He then joined Mesa in a spin-off
Spin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
of Mesa de Noticias, El gordo y el flaco (akin to Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
), which aired from 1991 to 1994, and appeared in a number of sitcoms in subsequent years.
Lunadei's often manic on-screen persona belied his struggle with clinical depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
, however. Separated from his wife, he began a relationship with television actress Perla Caron in 1993, and in 1997, moved to her Belgrano
Belgrano, Buenos Aires
Belgrano is a leafy, northern barrio or neighborhood of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina.- Location :The barrio of Palermo is to the southeast; Nuñez is to the northwest; Coghlan, Villa Urquiza, Villa Ortúzar and Colegiales are to the southwest....
home. He continued to work despite his worsening condition, and had memorable roles such as in the mystery
Mystery film
Mystery film is a sub-genre of the more general category of crime film and at times the thriller genre. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of a crime by means of clues, investigation, and clever deduction.The...
mini-series, Archivo negro (Black File), for which he was nominated for a Martín Fierro Award in 1997, and in the film-noir El inquietante caso de José Blum (The Troubling Case of José Blum). Alone in Perla Caron's home, he shot himself with a .32 caliber pistol on June 17, 1998. Lunadei was interred in the Actors' Pantheon at La Chacarita Cemetery
La Chacarita Cemetery
Cementerio de la Chacarita in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is known as the National Cemetery and is the largest in Argentina.-Location:The cemetery is in the barrio or district of Chacarita, in the northern part of Buenos Aires...
.
The respected stage, television and film actor was renowned in the local entertainment industry for his improvisation
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
al skills. A production company operated by Juan Carlos Mesa and others announced that a remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
of Mesa de noticias was being considered; Mesa himself expressed that "bringing back a hit such as that inevitably leads to criticism that it's somehow not the same, and it wouldn't be the same: Gianni is no longer here."