Ludovico Peregrini, the legendary "Mr. No" from "Rischiatutto," has died.
Ludovico Peregrini , the legendary "Mr. No" from Rischiatutto , has died. "He passed away at the age of 82 in Brittany, surrounded by his loved ones," his wife Nicou and daughters Sofia and Anna announced. "Known to all as 'Mr. No,'" his family emphasized, "he remained full of curiosity, lightheartedness, and openness to everything and everyone until the very end. His greatest joy, besides his family, was having been able to keep so many people company with his programs."
Life and careerLombardo, born in Como on June 27, 1943, and Milanese by adoption, lived in an elegant house a stone's throw from Sant'Ambrogio, surrounded by books that he considered objects to be venerated. He had the grace and precision of a man of another era, and a career that spanned a crucial period in the history of Italian television. With a degree in literature from the Catholic University of Milan, Peregrini had been drawn to television by a friend who worked at RAI. His first experience was on Settevoci , with Pippo Baudo . Then came the turning point in 1970 , when he began collaborating with Mike Bongiorno on Rischiatutto , inaugurating a partnership that would last over forty years.
From Mike Bongiorno was his stage partner and invisible director. Peregrini guarded and nurtured Rischiatutto , helping to make it a cultural phenomenon capable of gathering up to twenty-five million Italians in front of the television. For him, the secret to success lay in the contestants' stories: men and women who brought their knowledge, but also their experiences, to the studio, from Massimo Inardi , the champion of parapsychology, to Signora Longari , a paragon of elegance and preparation in a television era still dominated by men. Unwavering, he ensured the quiz show's rules were adhered to, systematically opposing the host's requests for exemptions: hence the nickname "Mr. No," which won him a place in the hearts of the general public.
After the Bongiorno epic, Peregrini also collaborated on programs such as Scommettiamo?, Flash , La ruota della fortuna , Bravo bravissimo , and Chi vuole essere milionario with Gerry Scotti, recognizing the difference in eras and television language: from the elegantly dressed audiences in suits on the episodes at the Milan Fair, to the interactive TV that invited viewers at home to reason along with the contestant. And again with Bongiorno, he collaborated on the 1997 Sanremo Music Festival.
Songwriter for Mino Reitano, Toto Cutugno , Mina , and for years the voice of Mike Bongiorno's quiz show Bis and Telemike , in 2016 , when Fabio Fazio called him to bring Rischiatutto back to life, he accepted with emotion, convinced by the promise of an operation capable of dusting off the format and modernizing it, while maintaining respect for its history. "We're not playing Rischiatutto ," he said, "we're playing Rischiatutto ."
A man of culture and memory, he longed for the Milan of the past, where "in a day you could find whatever you needed for a program," but he recognized the quality of life and freedom the city still offered. He remained clear, however, in acknowledging that "the taste for knowledge has been lost: today, for Garibaldi, there's Wikipedia, and TV suffers."
Right up until the very end, in auditions and television appearances, he maintained the pleasure of testing the knowledge of others, with the same unyielding elegance that had made him, for everyone, “Mr. No.”
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