Walter Chiari: Celebrating 100 Years of Talent and Eccentricity in Cinema
Italian culture commemorates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Walter Michele Armando Annichiarico, better known as Walter Chiari, after a long and unjust oblivion. Born in Verona on March 8, 1924, with origins in Puglia (his father Carmelo was a public safety officer from Grottaglie), and adopted by Milan, Walter Chiari remains unique and indefinable in his acting career. He made 112 films, but Italian cinema never truly embraced him, despite his debut in 1946 (“Vanità” directed by Giorgio Pastina), his collaboration with Luchino Visconti (“Bellissima”, 1951), and his personal success with Blasetti (“Io, io, io e… gli altri”, 1966). In theater, he was a star of musical comedy and revue theater (his incredible successes include “Buonanotte Bettina,” “Il gufo e la gattina,” and “Un mandarino per Teo” in the 1950s and 1960s). He was also a charismatic actor in drama (from “La strana coppia” with Renato Rascel in 1966 to Beckett’s “Finale di partita” twenty years later).
His success is mainly owed to television, where he became a regular protagonist starting in 1958 when he appeared alongside Carlo Campanini with his signature act, “Il Sarchiapone,” which he constantly reinvented through additions, modifications, and improvisation. From then on and for over 10 years, he was a brilliant performer and experimenter on shows such as “Studio Uno” directed by Antonello Falqui, “Canzonissima” with Mina and Paolo Panelli, and “Speciale per voi.” It was in that studio, in 1970, that he was arrested by the police on charges of drug possession and trafficking. He remained in prison for 98 days until he was acquitted of the trafficking charges and received a suspended sentence for drug use. Years later, he openly admitted to using cocaine, stating that it had circulated widely in the theater since the end of World War II (“the dancers who had to support Wanda Osiris used it every night”), but he had never been dependent on it or a dealer. For ten years, Rai, the Italian public broadcaster, closed all doors to him, while public opinion seemed unforgiving of his unconventional life. The film industry and emerging private broadcasters did not offer him the opportunity to regain his past success. When things seemed to be turning around for him in 1985, a repentant informant – the same one who accused Enzo Tortora – brought him back to court, accusing him once again of cocaine trafficking. Although he was already acquitted during the investigation, Walter Chiari was left devastated by the ordeal, and from then on, his decline began until the night of December 19, 1991, when he suffered a heart attack. He was found dead the next morning in his residence in Milan.
To understand what made Walter Chiari a unique and unparalleled performer in Italian theater, one must delve into his controversial and complex background. As a rebellious student in Milan, where his family had moved when he was nine years old, he soon left his studies and took on multiple jobs (storekeeper, electrical technician, bank employee, journalist, caricaturist) while pursuing a promising sports career: he was a good lightweight boxer but had to quit after winning the Lombardy Featherweight title in 1939; he also played tennis, swam, and even became a champion bowler. He returned to his studies and graduated from a scientific high school, but the war forced him to abandon university in 1943. That dramatic period in Italian history marked his subsequent years: he enlisted in the X Mas of the Italian Social Republic, was called up by the German army, ended up in Normandy, and was captured by the Allies, who took him to a prisoner of war camp near Scandicci. With the arrival of 1946, he became a free man again and returned to the theater, immediately catching the attention of revue queen Marisa Maresca, who wanted him in the cast of “Se ti bacia Lola.” He moved to Rome and definitively embarked on a career as a comedic revue actor. Thanks to his natural talent, storytelling skills as a great improviser, and perfect ability to imitate various dialects, he quickly developed an original persona, which he later leveraged in television. He was an actor out of time, capable of surpassing all limits (including his own), hungry for consensus and love.
He always appeared on stage with the bewildered look of a clumsy student, only to provoke endless laughter and affection. In the TV shows of the 1960s, he caused a real upheaval thanks to his ability to be both international and local at the same time, with an experimental approach that suited the innovative phase of young state television. In cinema, he was less fortunate because he was often relegated to supporting roles, as if his directors (often of great stature like Monicelli, Damiani, Steno, Risi, Scola, even Orson Welles) did not believe in him as a lead. In the end, he is remembered not only for his talent but also for his numerous love affairs (from Elsa Martinelli to Ava Gardner and his tumultuous marriage to Alida Chelli, ending with his last partner Patrizia Caselli), his excesses, and his contagious charm. Milan dedicated a park to him, his son Simone wrote a beautiful book tracing his life and career, and he himself represented his story on television in “Storia di un altro italiano” with Tatti Sanguineti. Now, Rai’s thematic channels are re-airing some of his most successful improvisations. He was a popular hero – simple and profound, a liar and a wastrel, absent-minded and irregular. Nevertheless, he was always unique, and although there have been faithful followers of his legacy (Teo Teocoli in particular), there has been no true successor.
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