Maurizio Costanzo Passes Away

Maurizio Costanzo Passes Away in Rome at 84, a Great Journalist

Not everyone knew that he collaborated on an early script draft of the film Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Costanzo contributed to the screenplay of many other films, four of which were directed by Pupi Avati: Bordella (1976), The House with Laughing Windows (1976) – which over time became a cult horror film – All Deceased… Except the Dead (1977), and Zeder (1983). In 1977, he helped write the screenplay for Ettore Scola’s A Special Day, starring the duo Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. In 1978, he also directed a film, the ironic Melodrammore, a parody of Raffaello Matarazzo’s melodramas, starring Amedeo Nazzari, the iconic actor of the genre, in his last film appearance.

Maurizio Costanzo also collaborated on the script for Ruggero Deodato’s film I quattro del pater noster in 1969, and in 1976, before beginning his long partnership with Pupi Avati, he wrote the screenplay for Duccio Tessari’s film Madame.

A cultured and attentive journalist, he interviewed people from all walks of life.

Maurizio Costanzo has passed away, leaving a great void in Italian journalism and television.

A brief biography:

Born to a family originally from Ortona, after graduating in accounting in 1956, he began his career as a journalist at a very young age and, just a few years later, as a radio and television writer.

He married photojournalist Lori Sammartino in 1963. Later, from 1973 to 1984, he was married to journalist Flaminia Morandi, with whom he had two children: Camilla and Saverio, now a film and television director. Costanzo and Morandi separated in the late 1970s.

Subsequently, in 1978, he began a relationship with actress, director, screenwriter, and voice actress Simona Izzo, with whom he lived from 1983 to 1986. On June 7, 1989, he married TV presenter Marta Flavi, from whom he divorced in 1995.

Finally, on August 28, 1995, he married Maria De Filippi. The wedding was celebrated with a civil ceremony at the Rome City Hall by then-mayor Francesco Rutelli. In 2002, the couple took in, and later adopted, a child.

In the episode of The Maurizio Costanzo Show on November 5, 2022, he admitted to having had a relationship with actress Giovanna Ralli in his youth, probably in the early 1960s.

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