When he took over La Capannina, for many it was a gamble. In 1977 Italy was experiencing the bloody season of terrorism and there was no desire to have fun. But Gherardo Guidi, who passed away suddenly at dawn yesterday in his home in Forte dei Marmi at the age of 84, was a man who loved challenges and faced them with courage. Always with his wife Carla at his side, his beacon that illuminated him. It had been like this when they managed the Sporting Club in Bologna during the violent seasons of the 1970s.
Being able to buy the Capannina was too strong a temptation for a man who “sold music and entertainment” as he always liked to say. And he brought the smile back to an anguished Italy already in 1979 when for the 50th anniversary of the restaurant (one of the longest-running in the world, opened in August 1929 by Achille Franceschi) he hired the entire cast of Bagaglino. He joined Fiorentina Calcio and the Viola players are at home at Forte. But only 12 months later, in the summer of Ustica and the Bologna massacre, the ghosts hover again. Guidi called Roberto Benigni and Beppe Grillo to clear customs for a place that until then had been a temple of aristocrats and nobles and in 1982 he experienced another summer that was double-sided for the country. The victories of Italia Mundial and Pietro Mennea make us understand that we can get back up. The “arrow of the South” and the great Pablito Rossi spent many evenings in Capannina until at the beginning of September he fell back into the abyss with the killing of Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa. In those hours Gherardo Guidi is organizing the events of the National Friendship Day in Viareggio. When the news of the General’s death arrives he turns off the lights but a few days later he brings Neil Young to a packed Pini stadium.
The Eighties are of rebirth. So much so that Guidi plays the role of producer for Rai and Mediaset with Scherzi di Carnevale, Mare contro mare and in Trento the Festival of Orchestras where alongside Benigni there is a young Giorgio Panariello. Gherardo Guidi is banking on that nice Versilian, but he believes in all the Tuscan comedy invented by his friend and manager Fernando Capecchi. So when the Aria fresco phenomenon broke out at the Bussola, another temple that he took over in 1982, it was nothing new for Guidi. A Zelig in Tuscan sauce that makes Panariello and Carlo Conti take flight. “He always believed in us and loved me” said Giorgio speaking of Guidi. “A great entrepreneur who knew how to manage his premises with grace, intelligence and intuition” underlined Conti.
Rai wants to entrust the Sanremo Festival to Guidi after Ravera’s death but he thanks him and says no. “I have places with 100 employees, I have to think about them.” When fear resurfaced in 1993 with the mafia massacres and the attack on the Georgofili, he received the title of Grand Officer of the Republic. As Gianluca Tenti explains in his book Thus I seduced the night on the story of the patron, it was a way to restore hope once again, rewarding those who offered serious entertainment. An entertainment that Guidi, always in step with the times, does not hesitate to change. From the orchestras, from Peppino Di Capri and Califano (who however will continue to take the stage together with Vanoni and Patty Pravo) we move on to Boy George and the rappers. It wasn’t easy to make four generations dance but Gherardo Guidi succeeded, also seeing the change in fashions. From the miniskirts of the late 70s to the teased hairstyles of the 80s, arriving at the 2000s with all tattoos. For someone who, born and raised in Castelfranco di Sotto, in the province of Pisa, brought Renato Zero and Amanda Lear in the 70s to the premises he had in Florence, it all seemed easy but it wasn’t. He has two regrets: not having cast Ella Fitzgerald and Yves Montand. But Gherardo Guidi made our best years sparkle. The stars he brought and his own continue to illuminate the night he loved and bewitched.
