Even at his funeral, the doyen of Maltese broadcasting Charles Arrigo, who died at the age of 76, managed to accomplish a feat no one else managed to realize in a lifetime. “In his death he succeeded in putting together in one place, the crème de la crème of broadcasting,” the former Labour minister Joe Grima says. “These people’s talent and sacrifice laid the foundation for what we should be having today. Unfortunately what we have today does not reflect the dedication and effort applied by these pillars.”
A Valletta man through and through, Arrigo was the first male announcer to be employed with the Rediffusion. Along with Effie Ciantar, Victor Aquilina and Victor Galdes, Arrigo was one of the “four columns” of broadcasting. “Each one of them had their own speciality and Charles’s was obviously the commentary.”
Television veteran Mary Grech compered the thirtieth anniversary for the Valletta Dramatic Company with “the irreplaceable Charles”. Several prominent presenters had called company director George Micallef to replace Arrigo, but both Grech and Micallef confirmed that it would have been nonsensical, as well as impossible, to replace him.
“I envisaged the celebration to be sealed off by him and Mary Grech,” Micallef says. “Mary was there in persona and Charles was remembered by the portrait that we will leave hanged at the Catholic Institute.”
Grech was full of emotion yesterday as she placed a gladiola in front of his portrait and tenderly kissed it. A week on, she was still sounding distraught as she recounted that the last time that she spoke to him was last Sunday – the day before he died. “I just wanted to ensure that everything was running smoothly for last Wednesday’s rehearsals with the orchestra, but as it turned out I had to show up alone.”
Grech met Arrigo before television was even heard of in Malta. Their friendship goes back to the times when she and Charles Abela Mizzi were auditioning for what would turn out to be a defining moment in their career.
Arrigo’s pleasant disposition meant that whomever he met ended up becoming a lifelong friend. Micallef first met him 40 years ago and they had since collaborated in several diverse artistic scenes including theater, television and radio. “We also used to travel together regularly as I worked as a tour leader. Two trips I remember fondly are of Portugal and the Mediterranean resort of Antalya in Turkey,” Micallef says, who was present when Arrigo had to be carted off to hospital for an urgent bypass during the rehearsals for the operetta the Merry Widow.
That he insisted on dedicating his time to the PBS long after he retired did not surprise anyone. A serious operator in every project that he touched upon, Arrigo still had time to joke and when working with Xandir Malta, he loved to recount funny anecdotes about his time spent at the Rediffusion office in Valletta.
Joe Grima chuckles as he remembers Arrigo describing the people who used to walk in the offices and beg him to say hello to their relatives. They would wait until the end of the program and he would introduce them before they started shouting with glee: “Hey ma, are you hearing me? It’s your son.”
The environment that Arrigo worked in was poles apart from what is considered the norm in broadcasting in present times. There were no recordings back then and every moment was a point of no return. At the time, the only recording apparatus would be found at BBC.
Irrespective of the primitive technology that Arrigo had to work with in Malta, he kept the impeccable standards that he had learnt during his various training sessions with the BBC. He had trained as an announcer and newscaster with the BBC World Service in 1959 and returned in 1962 for training for television. He also had a part in the Alec Guinness film, The Malta Story. Until the end of his life, Arrigo kept himself busy at the Public Broadcasting Services assisting in the vetting of programs. He was also President of the National Council of the Elderly.
Michaela Muscat (source: Malta Today, 19 Feb 2006)
1 comment:
This article is so good for Malta Colleges.University Malta is so good.
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