Erberto Landi

Eberto Landi was a prominent Italian producer, publicist and advertising executive, who promoted Italian entertainment and television programs in the US from 1939 to 1971.

He was born in Savigliano, not far from Turin, on October 9, 1908. His parents, Eugenio Levi and Stella Foà, were both jewish and named him Giacobbe Erberto Minetto Levi.

After spending his youth in Piedmont, Levi/Landi settled in Milan to attend the Regia Università (Royal University), where he received his degree in Law in 1930. His passion for journalism trumped however his will to become a lawyer: between 1930 and 1932 he attended a course in journalism at the University of Perugia, and began to collaborate with a few sports newspapers. In his early twenties he was already among Italy's main soccer-news journalists, writing articles for La Gazzetta dello Sport, La Domenica Sportiva, Calcio Illustrato, and Il Littoriale.

In 1933 he authored "Il campionato di calcio 1933-34," a comprehensive guide to the Serie A and Serie B soccer teams of the time. Around the same period, he published the short biographies of some of the major soccer players of his time, including Felice Placido Borel, Umberto Caligaris, Carlo Ceresoli and Nereo Rocco. The biographies were part of a "Champion of the Day" series realized by the Gazzetta dello Sport. In 1935, he also authored "Viri: piccola storia di un grande atleta," a biography dedicated to famous soccer player Virginio Rosetta and published by the Editrice Popolare Milanese.

Following the promulgation of the Fascist racial laws, in 1938, Landi/Levi fled from Italy to London. However, he only reamined there a few months. As early as June 1939, he arrived in New York aboard the "SS American Farmer." A few months later, his mother, Stella Levi, followed him. The two shared an apartment on West End Avanue, in Manhattan Upper West Side. Stella would later work for the Italian consulate in New York.

In New York, he initially worked for the Pettinella Advertising, an advertising agency that promoted Italian products in the United States. In the early 1940s, Landi/Levi began to make his way in the broadcasting world, working as an announcer for Italian radio programs for a number of New York state networks/stations, such as WOV, WNCW, WBNX and WHOM. Thus began his long activity of promoting Italian culture in the United States through the creation of radio programs dedicated to spreading the Italian language through music and, later, also television. From 1943 to 1948, he was also with the Italian section of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), working as director of a series of Italian-language programs. These targeted both Italian-American and American audiences. He also had the task of selecting Italian films to be broadcast on the network.

During World War II, Landi/Levi collaborated with the Bureau of War Information and with Voice of America (VOA), the official state-owned news network and international radio-broadcaster in the US.

In 1946 he applied for and obtained American citizenship, permanently changing his name to Erberto Landi.

Between the 1940s and 1950s, Landi worked as a producer of weekly Italian language programs on WNJU-TV Channel 4. As the network was based in New Jersey, Landi extended his promotional actitivy beyond New York.

In 1950, he produced Italian Feature, the first foreign-language television program in the United States. This TV show was broadcast in New York (first on WOR-TV NY, then on WABC-TV), and, on an on-again/off-again basis, in other cities such as Wilmington, Philadelphia, Providence, Steubenville, Chicago, Boston, Rochester, Atlantic City and Bridgeport. The series  played off a selection of Italian films subtitled in English, with the intent of reaching both Italian-American and U.S. audiences. Between 1950 and 1955, Landi selected over 200 Italian films. From the mid-1950s, he added another feature to the program, namely Italian newsreels. These were produced and shipped weekly by Attualità Italiana, the newsreel house which supplied most of the movie-theatres in Italy, or by Incom, another Italian newsreel service. According to Landi, despite the show’s heavily Italian character, nearly 30% of his audience was made of non-Italian viewers. He thus claimed his important contribution to spreading Italian film products overseas.

In 1958, he began producing another important TV show, Continental Miniatures, which played on WNJU-TV, Channel 47. The program was broadcast in both New York and New Jersey and included interviews with Italian celebrities, a selection of shows produced by the RAI, Italy's major TV network, as well as performances by some of the most important Italian singers of the time, including Claudio Villa, Adriano Celentano, Rita Pavone, Milva, Orietta Berti, Peppino Di Capri, and Achille Togliani, who thanks to Landi made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1959.

The growing interest in the Italian music scene also marked another step forward in Landi's career, as he started working as record producer and music manager. He thereby played a key role in introducing American audiences to major Italian pop singers, as well as to some important opera singers such as Luciano Virgili and Toni Arden.

More importantly, in 1958 Landi became Domenico Modugno's manager and representative in the United States, playing a decisive role in enshrining the success of the Italian singer overseas. It was Landi who arranged Modugno's appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1958. He would also organize all of Modugno's subsequent tours and television appearances in the United States.

Through Landi's intercession, in 1959, both Cash Box and Billboard magazines covered the Italian Sanremo Festival. In 1960, Landi was also responsible for organizing a U.S. tour to introduce the Sanremo Festival singers to the American public. That same year he organized New York's first Neapolitan Song Festival.

In 1961, Landi promoted the American tour of some of the most famous Italian singers who had participated in that year's edition of the Sanremo Festival. Throughout the Sixties, he brought to Carnegie Hall or to some other major musical hall in the US (including Philadelphia's Philharmonic Hall) a wide group of famous Italian singers, such as Rita Pavone (in 1965), Milva (in 1966), Pino Donaggio (in 1967), Claudio Villa (in February-March 1967 and again in 1970), and Italian baritone Luciano Virgili (in 1964).

In addition to Landi Enterprises Inc. and San Remo Publishing Co. Inc., which took care of the American recording of several Italian songs like Nilla Pizza's "Vola, Colomba" and "Grazie dei Fiori," or Tony Dallara's "Romantica" and Johnny Dorelli's "La nostra melodia," in the 1960s Landi also founded his own advertising agency, the Landi Advertising Co. In December 1969, the company (whose headquarters were on Manhattan's 7th Avenue) was entrusted by Ferrero with the U.S. promotion of its "Mon Cheri" chocolates.

Land's intense activity in promoting Italian culture overseas made him one of the leading figures in the Italian-American community in New York.

Due to his achievements in promoting Italian culture in America, but also because of his service as publicity director of Italian Charities of America, Landi was awarded the title of "Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana" in 1962.

He died in October 1971, at the age of 63, at St. Clare's Hospital in Manhattan. He is buried in Beth Olam Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Related Vectors

Documents

• Discografia di Levi