How and when does your career begin? And what about the idea of the Smaila’s? Could you outline your character to us?
I began to play music to entertain people in 1991 in Sardinia, precisely in Costa Smeralda, in the village of Poltu Quatu whose name means “hidden place”: it is a sort of ord where
a harbour with boats, restaurants and hotels was created. The first ever Smaila’s, that contributed to make Costa Smeralda famous, was born there. Years ago, the most important
characters of cinema, sport, music and show business came to that place. It was a real fashion contributing to re-launch a new musical genre: the music as entertainment that clubs and discos had forgotten. The idea had a great success: I went everywhere in Italy and this became my main job absorbing me completely. I disappeared from television and left my previous job as a presenter, cabaret artist and movie actor. My career began in 1971 on television: this year I am going to celebrate a career of thirty-eight years. I started doing cabaret with a group of guys called “I gatti di Vicolo
Miracoli”: we worked together for 16 years, until 1986; then I started to be a presenter on Canale 5, whose name at that time was Fininvest. I presented about 2000 quiz shows such as Help, C’est la vie, Babilonia: in 1987 I began a show of extraordinary success, which was “Colpo Grosso”, hosting it for four years: this format has remained in the history of television and marked a turning point for the entertainment world, highlighting the erotic aspect but within certain limits as it was broadcasted at 11.30 pm. Millions of people saw it and many of them are still so fond of it that, when I walk around, they sincerely thank me for it.
How many Smaila’s are there in Italy and abroad today?
As I said before, the fi rst was that of Poltu Quatu, in Costa Smeralda. In 2001, the second was opened in Sharm El Sheik, within the Coral Bay Resort, the biggest of Sharm with 4.000 beds, a casino, a beauty farm and so on. Back then, in 2001, we were living a phase of expansion, just like the time in which we opened the fi rst Smaila’s in Sardinia.
e presence of our club contributed to advertise the area, therefore the Coral Bay. In total, there are ten Smaila’s.
In Italy there are two Grimaldi cruise-ferries and two extraluxury ferryboats that have on board Smaila’s along with casinos and beauty farms. ey represent a new concept; they are called “sea motorways” linking Barcelona to Civitavecchia.
We inaugurated the fi rst one, the motor-ship Roma, later a second one, called Barcelona: both can accommodate about 2.000 passengers. I go to these places once in a while, not always of course. ere is a Smaila’s at Sestri Levante and one at Martinsicuro, in the province of Teramo, which is a very fashionable place on the sea built and inaugurated not long ago. e most recent is the Smaila’s in Bari (Celler, as a wine cellar). We opened a Smaila’s Café in Genova as well using the same franchising formula. We would like to open new cafes in Marbella, Miami, Santo Domingo and Las Vegas: in all these places there are agents willing to invest money. Let’s say that we are very self-confi dent and we hope for the best.

What sort of business does the opening of Smaila’s represent for you and when did you understand that they could be a source of money?
At a certain point we understood that this formula could be exported and become a format where my constant presence was not necessary, for it was possible to alternate it with
other artists that we could create and provide ad hoc.
Therefore, in 2005, a new Smaila’s was opened at Aprilia, near Latina, in the small village of Campoverde. It was another success, mainly due to the fact that gradually people are less attracted by discos as they were in the past. Today discos are an obsolete concept, while this type of show can be proposed both as a music event and as a dinner club that can be interesting for many operators. It is a simple and pure franchising formula: basically, we lend the name Smaila’s in exchange for a small contract or a job guarantee to organize events.
The pivot of this business is that, in a period of global crisis for the show business and many other professional sectors, through this entertaining activity I have secured myself a certain and profi table job for my future: I play in bars that bear my name and where people love the idea that I am there more than anybody else. We noticed that nowadays this formula can work because many people want to use it, especially those who run a bar want to give it a Smaila’s con notation because in this way they are sure to attract people of thirty years and even older who do not go to discos, who like to spend an evening having dinner and staying in the same place without moving somewhere else. However, this does not prevent younger people to come to our cafes, also because our music suits all diff erent ages. Moreover, today, people really love to sing and dance and, as we are used to do in most cases, when the evening is about to end, we always try to combine our show with some disco music which is in tune with the evening, therefore no house music no heavy metal.

Is music important in your life and in your career?
During my career music was and still is very important. e past week the last Jerry Calà movie “Torno a vivere da solo” came out at the cinemas: it features among others Paolo Villagio, Enzo Iacchetti and also my two sons Rudy and Roy play a small part in it. For this movie I arrange my 25th cinema sound-track. With Jerry I made fi ve or six movies: “Il ragazzo del pony express”, “Sotto zero”, “Delitti e profumi”, “Chicken park”. With Vanzina I made four, “Arrivano i gatti”, “Una vacanza bestiale”, “Sognando la California”, with Carol Halt I made “I miei primi 40 anni”, then “Soldati” of Marco Risi, and again many sound-tracks. Music is part of my life, both as an author and as an interpreter: also when I was a “cat” (when I worked with “I gatti di Vicolo Miracoli”) and I was a comedian, I used to write songs.