Cochi e Renato are an Italian musical and comedy duo composed of comedians

Renato Pozzetto Renato Pozzetto (born 14 July 1940) is an Italian actor, director, comedian, and singer. Biography Pozzetto was born into a working-class family from Milan and grew up in the ''comune'' (municipality) of Gemonio, in the province of Varese. Aft ...

and

Cochi Ponzoni Aurelio Ponzoni (born 11 March 1941), known professionally as Cochi Ponzoni, is an Italian actor, screenwriter, singer and comedian. Life and career Born Aurelio Ponzoni in Milan, Ponzoni studied at the Italian Liceo classico in Milan, having ...

Life and career

Ponzoni and Pozzetto were childhood friends, and they grew accustomed to perform together in front of an audience of friends and relatives.Aldo Grasso, Massimo Scaglioni, ''Enciclopedia della Televisione'', Garzanti, Milano, 1996 – 2003. . Their professional debut took place in 1965 in the small cabaret club Cab 64 in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, where they performed along with

Lino Toffolo Lino Toffolo (31 December 1934 – 16 May 2016) was an Italian actor, singer-songwriter, author, and television presenter. Life and career Born in Murano, shortly after his debut Toffolo moved to Milan where he obtained his first successes a ...

and

Bruno Lauzi Bruno Lauzi (; 8 August 1937 – 24 October 2006) was an Italian singer-songwriter, poet and writer. Biography Bruno Lauzi was born in Asmara, then part of the Italian East Africa, to a Catholic father, Francesco Lauzi and a Jewish mother, ...

. They were also joined by

Enzo Jannacci Vincenzo "Enzo" Jannacci (; 3 June 1935 – 29 March 2013) was an Italian singer-songwriter, pianist, actor and comedian. He is regarded as one of the most important artists in the post-war Italian music scene. Jannacci is widely considered as ...

and

Felice Andreasi Felice Andreasi (8 January 1928, in Turin – 25 December 2005, in Cortazzone) was an Italian film, television, and stage actor. He appeared in over 50 films in Italy between 1972 and 2005. Biography He was considered one of the leading stage a ...

with whom they formed the comedy ensemble Motore, who had a good success in Milan. The couple became first known in the late 1960s thanks to the

RAI (), commercially styled as since 2000 and known until 1954 as (RAI), is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many terrestrial and subscription television channels a ...

innovative variety shows ''Quelli della domenica'' (1968) and ''È domenica, ma senza impegno'' (1969). Characterized by a peculiar comic verve, filled with paradoxical and surreal moods, their popularity increased in the early 1970s with the variety show ''Il poeta e il contadino'' and with the participation with the musical show ''

Canzonissima (; ) was an Italian musical variety show broadcast by Rai 1 from 1958 to 1975, aired on Saturday evenings except for the last two editions, which were aired on Sunday afternoon. The program has been referred to as "the synthesis and paradigm of ...

''. The couple began to crack in 1974, when Pozzetto started devoting himself to a full-time film career. After a long separation, Ponzoni and Pozzetto reunited in 2000s for a series of television and stage projects. Cochi e Renato were also very active as singer-songwriters (often with the collaboration of

), and they had several commercial hits; their most successful song is "E la vita la vita", which reached the first place at the Italian charts in 1974.

References

External links

Cochi e Renato
at

Discogs Discogs ( ; short for " discographies") is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. Database contents are user-generated, and described in ''T ...

{{Authority control Italian male film actors Singers from Milan Italian male stage actors Living people Italian television personalities Italian comedy duos Italian comedy musical groups Italian pop singers Italian musical duos Musical groups from Milan Year of birth missing (living people) Musical groups established in 1967 Musical groups disestablished in 1974