Teddy Reno

Italian singer, record producer and actor (born 1926)

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Ferruccio Merk Ricordi (born 11 July 1926), known professionally as Teddy Reno, is an Italian retired singer, songwriter, actor and record producer.

Life and career

Born in Trieste, to a father of Austrian origin and an Italian Jewish mother, Reno made his debut on Radio Trieste during the Anglo-American administration of the city, launching the song "Eterno ritornello (Te vojo ben)". He later entered as a singer the orchestra of Teddy Foster, with whom he toured across Europe and North Africa. In 1948, he founded one of Italy's first record companies, CGD (i.e. Compagnia Generale del Disco), which he later sold to Ladislao Sugar, a publisher of Hungarian origin and future owner of the Sugar Group. He enjoyed a great degree of success as a singer in the 1950s. In the 1960s, he focused his career on discovering and producing new talents, mainly through the Festival degli sconosciuti (Festival of the Unknowns) which he created in 1961. Some of Reno's discoveries at the Festival include The Rokes, Dino and Rita Pavone, whom he married in 1968.

Reno was also active as a film and stage actor and a television and radio presenter. Since 1968, he and his wife Rita Pavone have lived in Ticino, Switzerland.