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In two weeks, I’m getting married, so I told my fiancée that I hope our marriage is like the Vianellos’. “You mean the couple where she kicks the sheets?” “Yeah,” I replied.
For close to twenty years, Sandra Mondaini and Raimondo Vianello portrayed a fictionalized slice of their married life on the show Casa Vianello. In it, they acted like they despised each other.
She would constantly nag him, and he would try to get away from her or even cheat (unsuccessfully) with younger women.
After a full episode of misunderstandings and hilarious mishaps, the couple would end up in their big bed. Him reading La Gazzetta dello Sport (the pink daily sports newspaper), while she, all bothered, would exclaim, “Che barba, che noia!” (What a bore, what boredom.) She then would proceed to kick the sheets from underneath the cover. He remained unfazed, used to the routine, perhaps resigned to it.
The show was incredibly popular, genuinely funny, and had no vulgarity in it. It was an old-school type of comedy that simply worked and made the Vianellos popular across multiple generations. (Though they were quite successful before Casa Vianello with various sketch shows, movies, and other TV appearances.)
They adored each other in real life, and their greatest career achievement came from playing two people who couldn’t stand each other on screen.
I grew up watching them and can’t help but find their unbreakable bond that lasted over 50 years awe-inspiring. Their humor, intelligence, and chemistry all assisted them in achieving something quite rare these days: enduring love.
Stick around. At the end, I’ll share a dark humor anecdote that perfectly captures how pretending not to love each other gave away the depth of their bond.
How it all started
They were both actors and comedians who met while rehearsing a stage parody of Madama Butterfly. It wasn’t quite love at first sight, but when it arrived, it broke two engagements (hers to a producer, his to a dancer).
Raimondo was well known for never showing his hand, but Sandra’s beauty and charm changed that. Over dinner with the rest of the cast, he simply told her, “Ma lo sai che mi sono innamorato di te?” (You know that I’ve fallen in love with you?) Then he went back to his cotoletta and carried on chatting with the comedian Gino Bramieri, as if nothing had happened.
They married in 1962 and worked alongside each other until the day he died in 2010.
The real Casa Vianello
Casa Vianello ran from 1988 to 2007, airing first on Canale 5 and then Rete 4. He’d retreat behind the sports paper; she’d nag. The big bed would swallow their oversized personalities at the end.
It became the longest-running sitcom in Italian history by repeating the format to perfection. A simple premise that never got boring or unfunny for two decades.
Couples who actually resent each other can’t pull off that level of indifference and bickering in an authentic way. You need the opposite at home to genuinely portray a contempt that doesn’t grate but comes out warm. Resentment that slightly reveals the loving foundations underneath.
In real life, much like on the show, they never had children. However, a young Filipino couple (Edgar Magsino and Rosalie Escarez) came to work in their home in 1991, and they never left.
Their whole family was essentially adopted by the Vianellos. They treated the Filipino couple’s son as one of their own. The love was reciprocated, so much so that in 1996, when a second boy was born, they called him Raimond after their “uncle Raimondo.”
When the Vianellos passed, they essentially left everything to the younger couple without fanfare. They showed their class and generosity until the very last moment.
The dark humor anecdote
Sandra had lived with depression for years, and Raimondo was relentless in trying to help her out. During a particularly dark stretch, she was at risk of suicide, so Raimondo would not leave her side.
Pippo Baudo, a friend of the family and arguably the most famous TV host in Italy, learned about Raimondo not leaving the house for weeks at a time. So he decided to convince him to come down for a coffee at a nearby bar. After much reluctance, Raimondo agreed to leave Sandra briefly alone to grab a coffee with Pippo.
On his way out, Vianello turned to the doorman and said: “Oh Giovanni, se viene giù qualcosa è roba mia.” If anything comes down, it’s my stuff.
(For context, people in Italian apartment buildings often lower things down from the balcony.)
Think about that joke for a moment. His wife is upstairs wallowing in a darkness he cannot fix. And he cracks a joke about her jumping off the balcony to her death.
On the surface, monstrous. Yet it lands with that foundation of incredible love and commitment, so the dark humor transforms into something tender. He was staying in character as the man who always made her laugh, with a joke that would have definitely made her smile, depression be damned. He was the parachute that saved her life during her darkest moments.
That is the entire marriage, compressed into one line for a stranger holding a door.
And that’s the kind of love I hope to demonstrate to my beautiful Alicia over a lifetime together.
A surprising discovery
He went first, in April 2010, at the San Raffaele in Milan. She followed that September, five months later, at the same hospital.
She had spent a lifetime on television telling him he bored her. She lasted five months without him.
I planned to publish this on September 21st. Randomly. As I approached the end of the article, I looked up the date of her passing to write the line above.
She died on September 21st. Exactly 16 years ago to the day. I’d like to take credit for timing this perfectly, but it happened entirely by happenstance. I feel it was meant to be.
Auguri Antontio, per te e Alicia. Tante buone cose per una vita insieme.