Ezio Greggio
Host, actor and director born in Cossato in 1954: from Drive In to Striscia la notizia, which he has hosted since its first episode in 1988.
Ezio Greggio (Cossato, 7 April 1954) is a Piedmontese television host, actor, director and comedian, a long-standing face of Italian commercial television. Born in the Biella area, he started out on a small local station in Biella and since 1988 has hosted Striscia la notizia, the satirical news show devised by Antonio Ricci, which he has presented from its very first episode.[1][2]
From the Biella area to television
Greggio was born in Cossato, an industrial town in the province of Biella to which he has stayed attached.[2] He tells of deciding to become a comedian after chancing, during a school trip to Paris, upon a film set with Jean-Paul Belmondo; his first job, however, was in a bank, which he left after six months.[3] His debut dates to 1978 on Telebiella,[1] the station he himself recalls as «Italy's first free television»[4].
The turning point came in 1983, when at Mediaset he met Antonio Ricci, whom he considers his greatest teacher.[1]
Drive In and the birth of Striscia
With Ricci he joined the cast of Drive In, the variety show that debuted on Italia 1 on 4 October 1983 and ran for five seasons, until 1988, becoming one of the phenomena of 1980s television.[5] Alongside Gianfranco D'Angelo, who played the drive-in's manager, Greggio played the young assistant; the other comedians included Giorgio Faletti, Enrico Beruschi, Massimo Boldi and Teo Teocoli.[5] Some of the show's catchphrases were his, such as «Is it him or isn't it? Surrre it's him!»[5]. Of his time with D'Angelo he has said: «Between us there was a contest over who could tell the taller tale to make the other laugh»[6].
The duo then moved on to Ricci's new project: Striscia la notizia aired for the first time on 7 November 1988 on Italia 1, hosted by Greggio and D'Angelo; that same season the two, fresh from Drive In, were also in the cast of Odiens on Canale 5 with Lorella Cuccarini, and in 1990 Greggio hosted the first edition of Paperissima with Cuccarini.[7]
Thirty-eight editions behind the desk
The programme, moved to Canale 5's access prime-time slot after the evening news, has become, according to Mediaset, the longest-running satirical news programme on Italian television, recognised by Guinness World Records.[7][8] His most stable pairing is with Enzo Iacchetti, behind the desk since 1994; with Michelle Hunziker Greggio hosted from 2005 to 2019, and in 2022 he was paired with Silvia Toffanin.[9] At the start of 2026 he had hosted thirty-eight editions, thirty-two of them with Iacchetti.[4]
On Striscia Greggio has also impersonated public figures: in 2018 the journalist Vittorio Feltri complained about a satirical portrait of him that, he said, showed him as someone who «rambles on»[10]. In January 2026, after a period of falling ratings, Mediaset turned the programme into a series of five prime-time special episodes, again entrusted to Greggio and Iacchetti.[8]
Film and the comedy festival
He came to cinema in the 1980s: in 1986 he was with Massimo Boldi in the cast of Yuppies 2,[4] and later acted in Vacanze di Natale '90.[11] His career in film includes a friendship with Mel Brooks, whom he calls «an icon to me», work with Leslie Nielsen and a friendship with John Landis.[1][11] As a director he has made, among others, Il silenzio dei prosciutti, a parody featuring eight directors, and Box Office 3D.[3] In 2020 he was among the stars of Lockdown all'italiana, the first film directed by Enrico Vanzina after the death of his brother Carlo, which drew criticism on social media before its release for making comedy out of the pandemic.[12]
In the Principality of Monaco, where he lives, Greggio founded with Mario Monicelli the Monte-Carlo Film Festival de la Comédie, an event devoted solely to comic cinema.[1][4] At the 2019 edition, with Emir Kusturica chairing the jury, the «King of Comedy» title went to Carlo Verdone, and Antonio Albanese was also among the award winners.[13]
In recent years he has returned to the stage with the monologue Una vita sullo schermo, two hours of sketches, impersonations and television clips performed in more than thirty shows across Milan, Rome, Turin and other cities; for this show in 2025 he received the Targa Argento Massimo Troisi for theatre, in Salina.[11]
The honorary citizenship declined in Biella
His tie to his home area also became part of a national political controversy. In November 2019 the centre-right council of Biella, led by mayor Claudio Corradino, resolved to grant honorary citizenship to Greggio, only days after the town council had rejected it for senator for life Liliana Segre, a Holocaust survivor; the mayor had argued that Segre had done nothing for Biella and its area.[2][14] Greggio declined, also recalling his own father's history, who had spent several years in concentration camps:[2][14]
«My respect for senator Liliana Segre leads me to step back and decline this honour»
Interviewed by Corriere della Sera, Segre called Greggio's gesture «a rare flower»[15]. On 26 November 2019 the Biella town council reversed course and unanimously approved, with 32 votes, honorary citizenship for the senator.[16]
Activism and his idea of satire
In March 2022, with a Monegasque charity and friends from Italy and the Principality, he organised a coach that brought 51 Ukrainian refugees to Italy from a camp in Poland, mostly women and minors, welcomed in front of Mediaset's Cologno Monzese headquarters.[17]
A Juventus fan, he has recounted replying this way to Silvio Berlusconi, who was offering him the chance to host quiz shows: «President, I'm a Juve supporter»[4]. He gives satire a definition with no safe zones:[1]
«satire should be 360 degrees, aimed at every political side: you cannot show respect, you have to be irreverent»
With Cossato, Biella and Piedmont as its backdrop, his career runs through the whole history of Italian private television, from the local stations of the 1970s to Canale 5's prime time.[1][4]
Pages linking here
Related articles: Biella
Sources
- il Giornale — 20 February 2025
- Il Fatto Quotidiano — 19 November 2019
- TV Sorrisi e Canzoni — 1 March 2018
- Il Fatto Quotidiano — 1 February 2026
- Il Post — 4 October 2023
- il Giornale — 15 August 2025
- Striscia la notizia (Mediaset)
- Il Post — 21 January 2026
- Striscia la notizia (Mediaset)
- Il Post — 6 October 2018
- il Giornale — 16 June 2025
- Il Fatto Quotidiano — 18 September 2020
- TV Sorrisi e Canzoni — 14 March 2019
- Il Post — 19 November 2019
- Il Fatto Quotidiano — 22 November 2019
- Il Fatto Quotidiano — 26 November 2019
- Il Fatto Quotidiano — 21 March 2022