Giorgio Bracardi, creator of Scarpantibus and Alto Gradimento voice, dies at 93

Death and background

Giorgio Bracardi, a musician, singer and comic actor, died at the age of 93, his family announced on Monday, 12 October 2026. Most reports say he had been in a care home in Fiano Romano since breaking a femur in the spring, while one report describes the facility as a hospital. Bracardi was born in Rome on 3 May 1933 and grew up in a household steeped in music.

Family and early career

His mother Edvige was a soprano and his father Glauco a tenor, and all five of their children were educated in music. His father was one of the first managers of the Salone Margherita in Rome. Bracardi trained as a pianist and toured as an accompanist for Maurice Chevalier and José Feliciano, according to Fanpage. In the 1960s he wrote for RCA and took part in the Festival di Sanremo as an author. His brother Franco Bracardi was also a musician and actor.

Alto Gradimento and his characters

In 1970 Renzo Arbore and Gianni Boncompagni brought him into Alto Gradimento, a radio programme that had struggled to take off until then. The show was devised by Arbore, Boncompagni and Mario Marenco, and Bracardi built a gallery of eccentric voices there, including Scarpantibus, the 'uccellaccio del Nicaragua', and the petulant reporter Max Vinella. Other characters were the colonel Buttiglione, the fascist official Ermanno Catenacci, the Rai doctor Marsala, the pharmacist Onorato Spadone and the Arab character Malik Maluk. One report gives the programme's run as 1970 to 1976, while Bracardi himself recalled that it stayed on air for eleven years, seven days a week. Looking back on the show, he said:

It was something unrepeatable.

Television work

Bracardi moved to television in 1979, when he joined Nanni Loy's Sunday show Tutti insieme compatibilmente on Raidue as the monarchist Professor Aurelio Marcellini. The character's line 'Chettefrega? Chettefrega?' became a catchphrase. In 1984 he appeared with his characters on Pranzo in TV, hosted by Luciano Rispoli on Rai Uno, and in 1985 he worked with Arbore again on Quelli della notte. In 1987 he took part in Pronto, chi gioca? on Rai Uno as Fausto Rossi, a show hosted by Enrica Bonaccorti and Giancarlo Magalli. From 9 January 1989 he hosted and performed in Chiappala chiappala on Rai 2. In 1995 he joined Striscia la notizia as Lucio Smentisco, a fictional spokesman for Silvio Berlusconi, and in 2001 he was among the cast of Marco Giusti's Stracult on Rai 2. He also voiced Cattivik in an animated series broadcast by Mediaset in 2008.