Gianni Minà (1938-2023) died on Monday, March 27, after a “brief heart disease”, according to the announcement on the official Facebook profile of the well-known Turin-born journalist and television host. He was 84 years old.
“He was never left alone, and was surrounded by the love of his family and dearest friends,” the statement read.
Minà’s journalistic career began in 1959 at the sports newspaper Tuttosport, of which he would be the director from 1996 to 1998. For the 1960 Rome Olympic Games, he made his debut on Rai as a reporter. From then on he would lead important sports programs and gain increasing recognition. His documentaries and feature films marked an era on Italian television.
In 1981 he won the Saint Vincent Award for the best television journalist of the year. In his Blitz program he received as guests Federico Fellini, Jane Fonda, Enzo Ferrari and Gabriel García Márquez, among other personalities.
«Minà covered eight soccer World Cups and seven Olympic Games, as well as dozens of world boxing championships, including the historical ones from the time of Muhammad Ali, about whom he wrote a book. In 1987, Minà became famous throughout the world for an interview with Fidel Castro for a documentary that would lead to a book: the report entitled Fidel tells Che«, reports Corriere della Sera.
«Gianni Minà’s telephone agent is something to envy. You open it, there is Cassius Clay. And it’s not that he hangs up the phone: he answers! (…) In the F there is Fidel, without Castro». says comedian Massimo Troisi in one of his most famous sketches.
Minà produced more than a thousand hours of reports, television programs and documentaries about characters who have gone through sixty years of history in his country and the world. Currently, the Mina’s Rewind project foresees the compilation and classification of all the material produced in order to make the archive available on the giannimina.it site and its official channels on social networks.
