Original subtitles

Richard Kershaw: Yesterday, Mr. Agnelli, you said in a speech

that there could no longer be any doubt

that Italy's system is on the edge of collapse.

What is going to happen to you if Italy does collapse?

Well, this is a very difficult question to answer.

When you say collapse, I think, "What would happen to me

if Italy is taken over by the Communists,

if Italy becomes like a country of Eastern Europe?"

I mean, if whatever we call a Eurocommunist

means that even Italy is going to be an Eurocountry

like all the Eastern European countries are,

I don't think I would like to live in Italy under those circumstances.

- One thing-- - But I would try to fight as much as I can

for those circumstances not to happen.

( Agnelli speaking Italian )

I always said it was dangerous

to think anything in his presence...

because he'd pick it up.

He had an unusual ability

to understand

the vibrations of events.

Giorgio Garuzzo: If you are not an Italian, to understand

what Gianni Agnelli was for Italy,

you must go back to the early '50s.

After the war, Italy was nearly destroyed.

No bridges, no factories, huge unemployment.

People were really in poor shape.

Dying young because of no medical care.

Then something happened abruptly.

Was this called "miracolo economico,"

the economical miracle.

Vendeline von Bredow: Suddenly, there was an economic boom

and lots of industries and companies sprang up,

and there was a real energy to rebuild.

Garuzzo: Italy became one of the largest

industrialized countries in the world.

Isabella Rattazzi: The industrial comeback of Italy is FIAT.

And it changed Italy completely.

Garuzzo: In the '50s, a lot of people came to Northern Italy.

The factories were growing like mushrooms--

by the thousands-- really, by the thousands.

So, the people, they got cash salary, pension,

medical care, and the FIAT medical care was very good,

school for the children.

von Bredow: FIAT housing, FIAT holiday camps,

FIAT kindergartens, FIAT sports fields.

Garuzzo: And finally, they got a car.

FIAT put the whole of Italy on four wheels.

Garuzzo: So, all of these was embodied

in the mind of the Italians

with the Agnelli family and particularly with Gianni.

Rattazzi: He was involved with everything Italians loved--

sex, cars, and sports.

- Lapo Elkann: He had soccer with Juventus.

He had Ferrari with cars.

Reinaldo Herrera: You couldn't really miss Gianni Agnelli.

People would think that they invented him.

Every woman was in love with him.

Every man wanted to be him.

He had been a playboy when he was young,

but no decent Italian is going to be dismayed by that.

He was a man of ideas.

Garuzzo: He became, for many Italians,

the symbol of what Italy could do,

the symbol of the Italian renaissance.

von Bredow: Gianni's grandfather was Senatore Agnelli,

who was the founder of FIAT.

Quite early on, he understood that mass production

was the future of the car industry.

And he was greatly inspired by American car companies.

von Bredow: He was a very cunning man.

Quite ruthless.

The Italian rubber baron.

Jennifer Clark: FIAT grew and expanded

into trucking, airplanes, trains.

von Bredow: It became the pillar

of Italian industry.

von Bredow: Gianni was raised in Torino.

He had four sisters and two brothers.

Mrs. Constance Parker was the English nanny.

We always had to walk with Ms. Parker in Turin.

Side by side, she took us walking every day

for one hour at least.

Cold, snow, wind.

von Bredow: You have to behave especially well

because you're an Agnelli.

But Gianni was very naughty as a child.

Full of mischief.

He was breaking all my toys and that sort of thing.

I didn't like it so much.

You know, he liked to tease.

Maria Sole: He was a great joker all his life.

He teased all of us. We had long hair.

He pulled it every time he passed next to us.

But he was really nice apart from that.

Cristiana: He was very charming and very attractive.

Maria Sole: Girls. Cars and girls.

That was definitely for him.

Lapo: His mother, Virginia Bourbon del Monte,

was extravagant, eccentric.

She had a leopard as a pet.

It was, I would say,

the-- a crazier part of the family.

von Bredow: She was quite promiscuous.

For a woman at her time, that was very unusual.

It scandalized European society.

Gianni's father, Edoardo, was very interested in the arts.

He loved the theater. He loved literature.

He was in his early 40s, and he had flown

to Forte dei Marmi on a seaplane.

He had just taken off his seatbelt.

von Bredow: It hit a log and capsized,

and Edoardo was decapitated by the propeller of the plane.

The senatore had to go to the morgue and identify his son.

He was devastated.

He left seven children behind and a very young wife.

Gianni was the eldest and he had to cope with it.

Lapo: He had to build himself an armor.

His grandfather sort of adopted him

and was the most important figure in his life.

Clark: He trained Gianni to run FIAT

and put the structure in place

to hand the company over to Gianni as the sole heir.

von Bredow: Gianni went to America for the first time in '38.

Clark: He was shocked at how modern the US was

and how far behind Italy was.

von Bredow: The Ford plant in Detroit is a village unto itself

with its big blast furnaces and smokestacks.

At the time, America was

undisputedly the number one in the world

in terms of industry, military might,

in all respects, and it made a very big impression.

He thought that New York was the coolest town in the world.

He loved America.

I mean, he told me, "I'm pro-America down to my belt."

Don Nicola Caracciolo: Gianni went into war.

He felt this was a duty.

He had to be loyal to the king

and loyal to the idea of the Italian state.

But there was a feeling that this was a mistake.

Maria Sole: My grandfather tried to stop him,

but Gianni said, "No, it's war

and I prefer going against the Russians."

He was a cavalry officer, which was quite brilliant.

He rationalized an Agnelli should be brave at war,

and he was a brave man.

He said it was a very sad experience.

"A lot of my soldiers that I fought with died.

I really don't want to remember this."

He didn't have a war sitting in some salon,

being elegant in a good uniform.

I mean, he had a war.

TV announcer: But now, the people of Naples,

seeing the British and American forces coming in,

well, they pretty well went mad.

Maria Sole: Christmas 1945.

Well, that was a very sad Christmas.

And we were all staying in Turin in this house.

The house was half bombed.

And my mother died in a car accident.

We were all very, very distressed.

von Bredow: At the end of the war, Gianni's grandfather

was accused of being a collaborator.

That was very insulting and also untrue.

My grandfather was still alive,

and I must say, he was treated very badly

by the new anti-fascists,

il Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale.

They decided my grandfather had to go away from FIAT.

It was a great sadness for him.

The grandfather couldn't work in his company after the war

and he died of sorrow because of that.

He used to go with his car and go there and look

and say, "Why don't they want me? Why don't they want me?"

Because he had given all his life to FIAT.

von Bredow: Before the senatore died,

he was actually exonerated

of being a collaborator with the fascists.

But by then he was a broken man.

He died without ever returning to the factory.

Maria Sole: My grandfather's funeral,

we tried to see if we could stop

in front of FIAT Works.

And they said no.

von Bredow: For this man who had played such a big role

in Italian capitalism,

that his funeral would be ignored by most people?

That was very painful,

certainly for Gianni, who felt very responsible

for his name and his reputation.

Clark: The grandfather had died in disgrace,

the factory had been bombed,

and Gianni does describe his concern

at seeing the sea of red flags at public demonstrations.

He was a very worried man.

( Castronovo speaking Italian )

von Bredow: The Allies were going to confiscate FIAT.

But the Americans were quite worried

about the increasing Communist influence in Europe.

And Gianni made the case that FIAT could help with that.

Through his charm

and his very good English,

Gianni played a big role in saving FIAT.

Maria Sole: He was able to say to the Americans,

"FIAT is Italian, is Turinese.

We want to keep it here."

After the war had ended and it was clear

that the Agnellis would retain control of FIAT,

there was a moment-- so, who is actually going to run it?

Vittorio Valletta was one of these people

who really lived for the company.

Gianni was very wise in recognizing

that Valletta should be chairman of FIAT.

Valletta saw Gianni as the prince whom you serve.

But he rightly knew that at that stage,

Gianni could not have run FIAT.

Caracciolo: He had a sort of group of friends

that had fought in the war that felt the despair,

that felt the only things was-- left for them in life was to amuse themself,

go with women, drinking, have cars and all of that.

And the beginning of after-the-war attitude of Gianni was that.

Valletta told Gianni, "Have a good time for a while.

Then when the moment arrives, I'll give FIAT to you."

Gianni did have a good time.

That, I must say.

Sally Bedell Smith: The South of France was abuzz with Gianni's arrival.

Lee Radziwill: The South of France was extremely carefree.

Very loose, if that makes any sense.

Herrera: You had everybody from Somerset Maugham

to Elsa Maxwell and Rainier and Grace.

Ari Onassis on his yacht.

It was the great, big private house party.

Taki Theodoracopulos: When I met Gianni the first time, I was very young.

I was on the tennis circuit, but I wasn't doing very well.

And I went to the South of France to take a break.

And I was awed by Gianni's charisma and all his charm.

The easy manner, the friendliness

instead of being stuck up or something like that.

Jackie Rogers: I was in Europe modeling for Chanel.

I met Gianni through Onassis.

He was on cocaine, stoned, and I didn't even know it.

And he was just coming on to me like crazy.

And he was very handsome.

And so, we went off to his house

and that's where we hung out that night.

von Fürstenberg: Gianni was irresistible.

It was not possible not to be seduced by him.

Not possible.

Smith: Gianni was in full fling,

surrounding himself with starlets.

There are three things I like most--

love, love, and love.

Anna Mucci: Anita Ekberg was fun, crazy.

She was crazy about Gianni.

Rogers: I was out with this interior decorator.

He said, "Let's go to Gianni Agnelli's at the Grand.

I know he's with Anita Ekberg."

I said, "Oh, wonderful."

So we go to the hotel,

and Gianni never locked the door.

The light is very low

and the music is playing,

and there's Gianni in bed with Anita Ekberg.

And so, we start laughing,

we put the lights on, and she started chasing us

down the hall stark naked with these huge bosoms.

The next morning, Gianni called me and said,

"Oh, I thought it was wonderful!"

He always said that ladies should be treated like tarts

and tarts should be treated like ladies.

Nick Hooker: Would a contemporary woman find him horrifying?

- Oh, I don't think so. - All right.

Well, the people-- what's wrong

is there's nobody around like him anymore.

That's the great problem.

Because they're so involved with making money,

they're boring as hell.

So, what do they bring to the table?

I mean, Gianni was funny and exciting.

He was incredibly alive, you see.

But I wasn't looking to have a romance with Gianni Agnelli.

I thought he was insane.

One of Gianni's favorite things

was to jump out of a helicopter

into the Mediterranean Sea.

That's, like, how he would start his weekend.

When I was a little, little kid, I remember him.

He arrived at this hotel, Hotel du Cap,

and he had his helicopter.

And he jumped out of the helicopter

and then he swam ashore.

Riotta: He had a physical courage

that was on the verge of being,

you know, suicidal.

Clark: Gianni loved to do the Cresta Run.

You're on a toboggan going down a chute

at, like, 100 miles an hour.

Rogers: You know, I said to him one day,

"Why don't you just go to the, you know,

the Empire State Building and jump off?"

He valued courage in the abstract.

He practiced it every day when he drove his car,

which was a hair-raising experience.

Agnelli: There are many ways of dying.

I don't think an accident is the worst.

There are infinitely duller and more unpleasant ways.

I drive many times with him.

Terrible, terrible experience. Terrible experience.

He drove always like we would be

in a Formula One race,

despite we were in Torino.

- He was completely crazy.

Kissinger: Totally disregarded policemen, one-way streets.

He would pass all the red lights and he would not look around.

When you see those things in films,

you think they're not true, but with Gianni, they were.

That's the way it was.

I said, "Listen, you son of a bitch,

if you want to, you know, to die in the mountains

and to do things like that, you don't have to make other people.

So I'm not talking to you for the next 24 hours."

( speaking accented English )

People that were around him, they were all in awe of him.

The Avvocato!

I mean, it was insane, absolute madness.

Announcer: And here comes the bride,

the honorable Pamela Digby, age 19.

The bridegroom, Mr. Randolph Churchill, is with his regiment.

Announcer: So it's swords and smiles, and the bride is having

quite a lot of trouble with that feather.

Smith: At the end of WWII, Pamela Churchill

filed divorce from Randolph Churchill,

the son of the prime minister.

He was a terrible drunk and disliked by many people.

So she needed to make some new conquests.

She went to a big ball

that was being thrown by Aly Khan,

one of the great playboys of the Western world.

Pamela and he struck up this affair,

but there was a moment

when he spotted Rita Hayworth

and fell head over heels in love with her.

He had been trying to figure out

how to extricate himself from Pamela,

and he came up with an ingenious solution.

Aly Khan wanted to get rid of her.

And he found that Gianni was a very good occasion.

Smith: Aly Khan's good friend, Gianni Agnelli,

fellow playboy, came by boat...

caught sight of Pamela

and said, "Buongiorno."

He was going off on a sail.

He invited her out for a day and she just stayed.

Herrera: It was a smart political move on his side.

Don't forget it was after the World War

and Italy had been on the Axis side.

Using her name Churchill helped tremendously.

Smith: They were using each other.

He was learning how to be a political operator.

Pamela understood that.

von Bredow: She became a bit of a Pygmalion for Gianni.

She wanted him to advance

so that she could become the unofficial queen of Italy.

Smith: The Churchill alliance was very valuable.

He was able to make Washington connections,

cleanse the reputation of FIAT.

And that was the most important thing that she did.

He responded with incredible generosity.

He bought Pamela a flat

in the most beautiful neighborhood in Paris.

He gave her a butler

and a Bentley and a chauffeur.

And he opened up accounts at all the best couturiers.

She converted to Catholicism

because she figured that was absolutely necessary

to getting Gianni to marry her.

It didn't work.

He used to go to sort of "loose houses," as we call them,

and try to pick somebody up.

Smith: Pamela was away.

Gianni spotted this really gorgeous woman

named Anne-Marie d'Estainville.

They hooked up that night

and they were embracing on the terrace.

And who should suddenly appear but Pamela?

She flew into a rage.

She threw something at them.

With her screaming and calling Anne-Marie,

who was certainly a very pretty, innocent young girl,

a hooker and all that.

They decided they would--

they would get out of there very, very quickly,

so they jumped into Gianni's car.

- Gianni was kind of in a state of agitation.

Something was off about him.

He was-- he had taken drugs.

He was coked out of his head.

I mean, he was really stoned constantly.

He did a lot when he was young.

He used to refer to "the great white nights"--

"les grandes nuits blanches."

Smith: He was going very fast

and slammed into a butcher's truck.

It was a very, very bad crash.

The young girl had nothing at all, walked away,

but Gianni went to the hospital.

Smith: Gianni had seven fractures in one of his legs.

Maria Sole: It was swollen so much.

It was gangrene.

For two months he had to lie,

leg upside down, covered with antibiotics.

I must say, I never heard him complain.

Pamela rushed to his bedside.

His four sisters would have none of it.

Well, I didn't like her very much.

I think she was too bossy for my taste.

Hooker: Did you and your sisters feel protective of Gianni?

Protective, quite not, but, uh...

How should I say?

Concerned.

Very concerned.

The sisters took matters in their own hands.

Two of the sisters, Cristiana and Maria Sole,

had a very good friend, Princess Marella Caracciolo.

Marella came from the Caracciolo family,

which were Neapolitan aristocrats.

You know, almost royal family.

Maria Sole: I had a house in Trastevere

and it was just behind Marella's house.

And so at that time I was very lucky

because I had a car and I could drive.

And so every time we went out, I took Marella with me.

All my friends wanted to marry her.

And Gianni was always saying that that's a lovely girl.

Smith: She met Gianni right after the war

and had fallen completely in love with him.

When the sisters called, she immediately went to Florence

to visit him in the hospital.

She was always with us and she was always,

"Oh, Gianni," was always looking for Gianni

and thinking about Gianni for five years,

and after-- and after, she got him.

My mother felt he was too much freethinking

to be a good husband.

She didn't like him at all.

She said, "That awful boy."

His reputation was very much glamorous, no?

He's what you call "Don Giovanni."

Absolutely.

But even if he says that only maids get in love,

Gianni was very in love with Marella at that moment.

Marella Chia Caracciolo: Marella spent the first few months

lying on a sofa, drinking orange juice,

and reading books on French poetry.

Gianni got more and more worried about this.

You know, having this sloppy wife.

And so he called Countess Lily Volpi in Venice.

She had Palazzo Volpi and she hosted

the best parties, the best dinners.

And he sent Marella there

for an intensive course of how to manage a home.

She spent terrifying days with this-- with this old witch.

Then I guess she understood that she had a job to do

as well as being in love and having a husband.

Cicogna: During their early years, they lived in Turin.

They had two kids.

von Bredow: Gianni named his son Edoardo after his father.

Maria Sole: He was so happy

about this birth of this boy.

He came to see my daughter and he said, "Ah!

She's the same age as Edoardo," you know, comparing,

which is something I never thought I'd see Gianni do.

Smith: Gianni had bought La Leopolda.

It was a grand house.

Just sort of one drawing room after another.

Rogers: It was used for "The Red Shoes."

It was huge and it was on levels.

Lupo: Marella and Gianni entertained almost everybody--

you know, kings, heads of state.

They were considered the top, top class

of the couples around the world.

To be invited to Gianni's house

was always-- everybody wanted to be invited,

and Marella made quite a decor about the house.

You know you have no idea in that moment--

Americans, when they want to be... up to date...

they were imitating the look--

everything of the Agnellis' house.

Theodoracopulos: Gianni had a great eye.

Really obsessed by aesthetics.

Valentino: From the beginning,

he got this unbelievable connaissance of paintings.

Herrera: He loved Balthus

long before Balthus was admired by the public.

The very first things he bought from me

were two early hand-painted Warhols.

One with a Batman on it in full color.

It was something which attracted him very much.

He kept it always very dearly and always had it with him

in one of his bedrooms somewhere.

Hooker:

A garçonnière is a place where guys go,

which they keep to meet their mistresses.

The garçonnière was a way of being private

and of not having...

you know, not having... scandal.

Hooker: And did Gianni have a couple?

He had them all over the place.

Reporter: The Villa Bona is a one-bedroom,

Italo-Japanese bachelor retreat

studded with sculpture by Lynn Chadwick and Henry Moore

that most cities would envy.

Agnelli:

I noticed it's loaded with pop art.

Agnelli: This is a joke.

I mean, I think it's a maggoty moment ol' smile or mouth,

but I think it makes one feel rather in a gay mood

to have it around.

If I'm nervous or keyed up

or excited or, I mean, any of these sort of emotional conditions

one can be in, if you have a chance of looking at something beautiful,

it's always extremely calming and extremely balancing.

( Paolo Pejrone speaking Italian )

Colacello: The Agnellis were seen as paragons of style.

The way they dressed was the epitome of the epitome.

Valentino: Marella used to come to the fashion house

to get some clothes from Valentino.

She was extremely simple.

But, you know, she had this size, extraordinary.

This long neck, beautiful legs.

And everything was fantastic on her.

Jas Gawronski: Style was Gianni's life.

Style was everything.

The way he dressed, it was very recognizable.

It was very in good taste.

He cared about that a lot.

Gianni always used to wear his tie like this.

How can a man who wears his tie like that

be the best dressed man in Italy?

But he was the best dressed man in Italy.

Hooker:

Everybody tried to copy him,

to put the watch on top of the cuff of the shirt.

A little detail.

I was in my 20s. He had just done this.

I saw it and I thought, "What a good idea."

Hooker: Did you ever see other people copying him?

Everybody.

Who didn't copy him?

I did copy myself.

Colacello: One big part of the Agnelli style and Agnelli aesthetic

is that it's never supposed to look like you're trying to have style.

It's like the dinner party just happened, you know?

And you just happened to wake up and grab something from your closet

and you look totally fabulous.

It always was about ease and grace

and never trying too hard.

Herrera: Here you had a man.

He had a leg that was practically destroyed.

He used to ski in a brace with great elegance

and go down faster than anybody else.

Colacello: And that grace was something that he and Marella both had,

and that was something that other people around them kind of emulated.

Hooker: How did the Agnellis differ

from an aristocratic English family?

Well, they were certainly a lot more friendly.

The duke, when he came down and he passed us,

we all had to just put our backs to the wall and look at the floor

whereas with Mr. and Mrs. Agnelli,

you became part of the family.

When I left my wife...

and I came out of the cupboard,

the first person I told was Mr. Agnelli.

I told him right away because I wanted him to know

and because I was living in his house.

I was-- I was part of the household.

He had a right to know.

What did you tell him exactly?

I got meself a boyfriend.

And he didn't-- "Oh, oh."

Not really very interested at all.

Led on he wasn't very interested.

Actually, the first thing he did,

he went around the corner, got on the telephone,

and rang the Duke of Beaufort

and said, "Stuart's queer!"

He rang everybody because he loved gossip.

He loved it. Loved it.

Gianni had this habit with everyone

to wait till about 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning,

say, "Is it amusing in London?"

or "Is it amusing wherever you are?"

And this poor person, you know, was in deep sleep.

This is because of Gianni.

In all the phones I have,

I have a "do not disturb" button, okay?

This is because of him.

Because he would call me at 6:00 in the morning

wherever I was and say, "Oh, did I wake you?"

I'd say...

When he had said what he needed to say,

he just hung up, so you-- you were sitting there waiting.

When will the hang up come?

I have this house in the South of France,

and he would call me.

And he says, "How is the sea?"

I said, "Gianni, I have no idea how the sea-- I'm tired."

"Go look!" And so I'd go and look in my window.

And I said, "The sea is beautiful."

He said, "Are you sure?" I said, "Yes."

He said, "My captain told me the sea is terrible.

He always lies to me, okay?"

And then sleeping and the door knocks.

And I said, "Who is it?" "Gianni." I said...

So he had landed on my place with a helicopter

at 6:00 in the morning and said, "Okay, let's go sailing."

Rogers: The Agneta was a magnificent boat.

It was mahogany.

( Giulio Marconi speaking Italian )

Cristiana: In any weather you had to go in this boat.

And the boat was like that

and he was happy like that.

( Marconi speaking Italian )

He had this enormous appetite for life, for life.

Ginevra Elkann: When he was around, the pace of life changed.

Everything.

Electricity.

Go, go, go.

Rome for lunch and dinner in Paris,

and then he would fly back to Turin.

And in the morning he would go to Germany.

I mean, move, move, move all the time.

Driving fast, moving fast.

When you got to the end of the day, your mind was a blank

because you took in Rome, Venice,

Paris, and come back again.

( helicopter blades whirring )

The worst thing was stepping back into your own life.

That was the worst because you were with this guy

who was James Bond-ish.

Then when you'd step back into your life, it was such a huge letdown.

( Marconi speaking Italian )

No one ever said that he wasn't wicked.

There was a great wickedness.

That was part of his great charm.

Smith: When the Kennedys arrived in 1961,

Washington exploded with glamour and culture.

And they had a series

of these fantastic black-tie dinner dances,

the first of which was in 1961,

and the guests of honor were Gianni and Marella Agnelli.

Kissinger: Agnelli wanted to promote

American-European relations

and something like an Atlantic community.

Roger Cohen: Gianni always saw his role

as trying to keep Italy in the West,

to be part of NATO,

to tug, pull Italy in a modernizing direction.

I came to Europe to reassert

as clearly and persuasively as I could

that the American commitment to the freedom of Europe is reliable.

Smith: In 1962,

Jackie and Jackie's daughter, Caroline, went to Italy.

Smith: It was during that time that the rumors began.

There were photographs of Gianni and Jackie

sitting together or lounging on the yacht together.

Gianni had a boat. He took her to Capri.

There was this... singer there.

I think she had great fun.

Smith: The "New York Daily News" said something like,

"First Lady in Pirate's Den."

JFK did send her a telegram

saying, "More Caroline, less Agnelli."

Hooker:

I don't know.

I don't-- but I wouldn't be surprised.

Ecco. Should I say that?

I shouldn't say it, maybe.

Hooker:

( speaking English and Italian )

de Benedetti: I met Margherita just one time in my life.

I was with her father, and at a certain moment,

the door opened and appeared Margherita

completely shaved.

Agnelli looked at her and said,

"What did you do?"

And she said, "At least you noticed me."

And she went.

( Branca speaking English and Italian )

( Valletta speaking Italian )

When I got to be on the board of FIAT,

I realized he was humble.

Very much in the line of duty.

von Bredow: Gianni was a very international man,

so when he took over,

he introduced American thinking into FIAT.

And that was a good thing, because by then,

FIAT really needed to become a bit more of a modern company.

Freck Vreeland: Gianni did have a huge responsibility to Italy.

What he had to devote his life to

was to making FIAT strong.

That would strengthen the entire economy of Italy, which it did.

( reporter speaking French )

von Bredow: FIAT became the most important European carmaker.

It overtook Volkswagen of Germany,

which was always the big rival.

( Agnelli speaking Italian )

von Bredow: By 1969, Ferrari, an Italian treasure,

was in serious trouble.

John Elkann: Ferrari loved racing.

For him, selling cars was to fund the racing activity.

And he had run into difficulties.

And that's when he asked

my grandfather to help him.

von Bredow: Ferrari was up for sale and Ford was very interested.

For Gianni, it was unthinkable

for Ferrari to be not in Italian hands.

Reporter: The entire motor industry is concerned

with the American safety standards.

Agnelli, according to his plant manager,

had to be restrained from sitting in the cars during the tests.

- No. Not too bad.

Reporter: FIAT and Agnelli represent

the new European challenge to America.

Quick to engage new technologies,

but sensitive to the human problems

of the new industrial state.

Our size is over a million cars.

I-- we'll sell over a million-- 1,150,000 this year.

I don't know if that's a safe size,

but it's already a big enough size

to be competitors with the United States.

Gianni was stepping into the end

of the golden period of FIAT,

which was basically from 1945

until about 1967 and 1968.

Then...

the unrest started in Italy.

Reporter: The student protests in France spread to Italy,

where they soon spread to the workers.

Giorgio Ghiglieno: All over Europe we had...

a sense of change, of evolution.

( reporter speaking Italian )

Reporter #2: The company is under heavy pressure

from Communist-dominated unions

in spite of the fact that FIAT

is recognized as having one of the most enlightened

industrial relations policies in Europe.

von Bredow: Gianni's impulse when confronted with strikes

or other tense moments in labor relations

was to try and talk to them.

( Garuzzo speaking Italian )

Kissinger: When you were at Agnelli's home...

the Communists and trade union people

and-- and left-wing writers

and right-wing writers, they were all there.

- von Bredow: He had great sympathy for workers

and also for their plight.

Clark: He signed an agreement with inflation skyrocketing.

Indexing wages to inflation.

It bought labor peace.

The left-wing party supported it.

von Bredow: Many of his critics say it really hurt

Italian business and industry.

He justified always, even with me,

saying, "At that moment in time

with the tension characterizing the country,

with the social tension, political uncertainty,

it was needed to have such an agreement."

Mario Calabresi: There were a lot of people against FIAT in Turin,

but not against Gianni Agnelli.

There was a-- something like a space.

Calabresi: Mr. Agnelli was the owner of Juventus,

the most popular Italian soccer club.

Reporter: In Turin, Juventus, the city's football team,

is one of Italy's leading teams.

And one of the responsibilities of being an Agnelli

is to see to it that Juventus wins.

Agnelli:

Reporter:

Agnelli:

Reporter:

I love it, and...

Thornton: His workmen, they were Communists.

So during the week, they were fighting with him,

but on the weekend they were on his side.

Thornton: And wherever he went, there was somebody

who was going, "Oh, Avvocato!

Come on, Juventus! Juventus!"

They used to pass by in the car, "Juventus!"

Ghiglieno: FIAT, in that period,

they had been facing the Kippur crisis.

The cost of gasoline was going up very quickly.

They were not selling cars.

Lupo: By 1975, the car market in Italy declined 40%.

FIAT was bleeding.

Really, there was no money left.

( reporter speaking Italian )

de Benedetti: I told him, "Look, Mr. Agnelli,

if you look at the P&L of FIAT,

you immediately understand that there aren't too many people

for what we are able to produce.

We need to lay off at least 60,000 people."

There was an excess of workforce.

And Agnelli said, "I don't question,

but I am not here to solve our problems

to the detriment of the Italian situation.

Because if I lay off all these people,

who's going to offer them a job?"

Lupo: As a result of the oil price hike,

the Libyan Arab Foreign Company

was very, very rich and full of petrol dollars.

von Bredow: FIAT needed an infusion of capital

and the Libyans were interested.

Gaddafi at the time was not seen

as a particularly nasty dictator.

He was seen as one of these eccentric Northern African rulers.

Just a bit crazy.

So, here comes this deal of selling 10%

or a minority stake of FIAT for a huge price.

( Marconi speaking Italian )

Hooker:

- No.

Yes.

Gianni went ahead and did it anyway.

It was an equity infusion of $400 million,

which at that time was an unbelievable sum.

It was a fantastic deal for FIAT.

von Bredow: The Libyans had board seats,

but they couldn't influence the way FIAT was run.

It worked astonishingly smoothly.

When-- when the Libyans came,

he called me up and told me, "Look...

resign from the board.

It's-- it's not to the liking of my new partners or...

not partners, but stockholders,

to have a-- somebody with a Jewish name on the board.

So, please, good-bye."

It's one aspect of Mr. Agnelli--

it's his toughness.

He was a totally unsentimental gentleman.

And I love him and I always did.

But he was like that.

Alain: FIAT was a sort of raison d'état.

It would come before everything.

Lupo: Gianni felt that he was running

more than a corporation; he was running an economy.

He was the king of Italy.

Of that, there was no doubt about it.

In the years I was there, he controlled everything.

"Controlled everything." One moment.

Mr. Cuccia controlled everything.

Cohen: If there was a political system

that was structured to keep Italy

from toppling over,

there was also an economic structure with the same purpose.

And that was centered on Mediobanca.

David-Weill: Mediobanca was run by an extraordinary individual,

who was Mr. Cuccia.

Cohen: If you say the spider at the center of the web,

that sounds perhaps oversinister, but he was.

He was fundamentally a Sicilian.

He would make things happen.

Not all the time.

You-- you wouldn't know how.

de Benedetti: Cuccia called Agnelli

and said, "I want you to hire a new chief financial officer

because I don't understand your account and you don't either."

That is the reason why Romiti joined FIAT.

von Bredow: Romiti had the nickname "Il Duro,"

the-- the tough one.

Romiti was a Roman

and he was completely at home

in playing the power game with Roman politicians.

And Gianni was actually not very comfortable in doing that.

He's too Turinese, he's too Northern Italian.

He found it quite ugly.

It didn't fit into his-- his idea

of how things should be done.

He let Romiti do the dirty work.

That also made Romiti later on so powerful

because Romiti knew all the secrets.

Hooker: Who was Romiti loyal to-- Gianni or Cuccia?

There is no doubt in my mind

that Romiti worked for FIAT, but on behalf of Cuccia.

Reporter: Italians were at the ballot box again.

The Communists won over 33% of the votes.

It was a major Communist victory

and it was celebrated as such.

The Communists take over even the city of Torino

and the region of Piedmont.

That was a shock for the country.

Reporter: Italy now has the biggest Communist party in the West.

Something like two million members.

It controls unions and, through them,

controls the industries and offices

where the union members work.

Bologna, Milan, Turin, Florence, Naples, Venice,

Genoa, Pisa, and even the government of Rome is Communist.

Vreeland: It was the dead center of the Cold War.

The United States with its NATO allies

versus the Soviet Union.

The United States does have apprehension on a broader basis

for Communist participation in the Italian government.

Italy was the weak link in NATO.

It was the weak link in the European Union.

It was the place in which it was most likely

that a West European country might somehow

topple over into the Soviet camp.

( man speaking Italian over PA )

( Garuzzo speaking Italian )

( reporter speaking Italian )

( Garuzzo speaking Italian )

Lupo: The Agnellis were seen as the villains, the capitalists.

There were these famous slogans in the streets--

( crowd chanting in Italian )

Lupo: Which means...

Lupo: Maintaining order in a situation

which was prerevolutionary was very difficult.

There was drug dealing, prostitution.

von Bredow: There were incidents of FIAT managers kneecapped.

There was really terrorism and violence.

Clark: The Red Brigades were ideologically motivated.

The Red Brigades wanted to instill

some kind of leftist alternative.

I mean, they were anarchic ideas,

they were quasi-Communist ideas.

The fundamental drive was armed revolution.

Lupo: Between '77 and '79, the Italian terrorists

had really ramped up their activities.

Ghiglieno: Terrorist organizations were shooting people,

preparing attacks.

Cohen: The Red Brigades were taunting Italy.

Reporter: The Red Brigades have demonstrated ruthless skills

in maiming or killing establishment figures,

such as this magistrate shot dead in Rome

on February the 14th this year.

On Tuesday, a guard from the Turin jail

was shot dead by three gunmen.

Firebombing of industrial executives' cars

escalated to kneecapping of politicians and journalists,

then kidnapping and murder.

So far this year, there have been

over 1,000 acts of political violence.

Lupo: Every morning was the war bulletin.

You'd tune the radio in and see who had gotten shot that very day.

And every day, something would occur.

A manager, a judge.

FIAT executives were prime targets.

Ghiglieno: My father, he was going to go to the office.

He left my mother in the garage downstairs, the house,

and took his car.

And these people were waiting for him.

They had been following my father for weeks.

Two of them came behind him and shoot him.

( Callieri speaking Italian )

Maria Sole: Gianni was very distressed about the situation.

And also about... kidnapping.

( reporter speaking Italian )

Cohen: After 53 days in captivity,

the Red Brigades assassinated Aldo Moro,

Prime Minister of Italy.

de Benedetti: Agnelli was pessimistic on Italy.

He considered that the country was lost.

Thornton: The Brigate Rosse wanted to kill him.

Of that, there's no doubt.

They closed down Villar Perosa

because there's 360 acres.

There was absolutely no way you could close the place off.

If somebody wanted to do something,

put a bomb or something into the house,

they could do it.

von Bredow: Many fellow industrialists left Italy.

Gianni never even thought about that.

Pigozzi: He stayed in his town,

went to the factory every day, went to his office.

Lupo: He was convinced that it would signal

to other people in the world that he believed in Italy

and therefore, they would believe in Italy.

Furio Colombo: He would drive his own car,

losing the escort, the police car

that were preceding and following him.

Vreeland: He had this FIAT car because it was important

that he, as the head of FIAT, had a FIAT car,

but the motor was obviously a Ferrari.

Colombo: He was extremely clever

in changing his own itinerary

every way to go to FIAT.

He made sure the Turin people knew he was there.

It happened several times.

He said, "Let's go and walk through Via Roma

that is the central Turin 5th Avenue."

With no escort.

And with a crowd around that was telling him,

"Thank you for being here."

It was normal.

That is dangerous, fine.

Who said that life should not be dangerous?

Ghiglieno: A number of people, 61 in particular,

were fired from FIAT Auto.

Many of them were suspected of being terrorists.

Clark: Predictably, the firings caused strikes.

Ghiglieno: There was a negotiation of a contract

of the auto workers,

and there was a long strike over not one day, two days.

Many days.

Most of the Communist party in Italy,

they respect the idea

of FIAT as a private industry.

Calabresi: But they were a radical area.

They had the idea

to change the country completely.

Lupo: The head of the Communist party, Berlinguer,

did a speech at the gates of the Mirafiori complex.

( Berlinguer speaking Italian )

Ghiglieno: He said, "Should it be necessary,

we could occupy FIAT's plants."

( Garuzzo speaking Italian )

( Berlinguer speaking Italian )

( reporter speaking Italian )

( Garuzzo speaking Italian )

( Callieri speaking Italian )

( Callieri speaking Italian )

Lupo: Suddenly, the middle ranks of the FIAT workers

organized a march.

( Callieri speaking Italian )

( man speaking Italian on PA )

Lupo: 40,000 people marched through the city of Torino

demanding that they be given the right to go back to work.

( Novelli speaking Italian )

Lupo: It was an absolutely stunning development

because nothing of the sort had ever happened in Italy,

and it completely stunned the organizers of that strike.

And they immediately gave up.

They said, "Okay, we were defeated.

We give up. Tell us what you want."

Clark: "Let's make an agreement here

and close this very bloody chapter of Italian history."

Lupo: In 1981, things really turned around for FIAT

and for the Italian economy.

The '80s are completely, completely different.

Reporter: In Italy, there's an obvious and growing prosperity.

And much of it is due to FIAT's success.

Reporter #2: Italy's become the talk of Europe.

Its emergence as a new economic power.

To what do you attribute this strength?

Agnelli: Industrial relations have settled

with a better relationship with the workmen and the industry.

Reporter #3: Mr. Agnelli, what is the best automobile

in the entire world?

Well, I think the best buy is a FIAT.

Lupo: FIAT at that time had the resources

to buy back Gaddafi.

So this huge operation was engineered.

It was very expensive to get rid

of the Gaddafi people, but he did.

When Italy gets better in the '80s,

L'Avvocato is seen as a unifying figure.

There were money for the unions,

there were money for the workers.

FIAT was doing very, very well.

von Bredow: Gianni was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

He was tired and he would have liked to take a step back.

( reporter speaking Italian )

( Garuzzo speaking Italian )

von Bredow: By the early '90s, FIAT was leaking cash.

Enrico Cuccia used this as a lever

to impose Romiti.

Cuccia said Gianni had to stay on himself as chairman

and to keep Romiti as chief executive.

Otherwise, we won't provide the cash to save the company.

Gianni had to let down his brother.

Romiti had won.

von Bredow: Gianni, who never swam in the pool,

suddenly jumped in the pool.

As if to cleanse himself

of something he didn't want to do.

( Pejrone speaking Italian )

( Mauro speaking Italian )

von Bredow: Five years later, Cuccia had less influence

and Gianni was able to finally get Romiti to retire.

He was then looking for a new chairman.

von Bredow: From early childhood,

Edoardo Agnelli could assume to be the next boss of FIAT.

Gawronski: Edoardo was a very intelligent,

very sensitive boy.

I mean, he was really of good quality.

But he had all the qualities

which Gianni could not appreciate

because he was-- he was sentimental.

He was an intellectual and totally different from his father.

They say that intelligent boys aren't very, uh...

courageous...

because you're stupid

when you're too courageous.

But that was something my brother didn't like.

He didn't like that Edoardo wouldn't jump down into the sea

and go into the waves.

Cicogna: Gianni would tell Edoardo,

"Today we're going to go to the soccer game.

I'm going to pick you up at 3:00."

And then he would never show up

because he'd completely forgotten.

He came here to Princeton and then...

things went south.

Theodoracopulos: Edoardo got heavily into drugs, into heroin,

and Gianni probably felt somehow responsible,

as well he should.

de Benedetti: There was a succession problem.

von Bredow: Edoardo was not suitable for any role in the company.

On the other hand, Umberto's son,

Giovanni Alberto, showed a lot of promise,

and Gianni thought, "Well, he is the likely heir."

Gianni told his brother, "Here is the next head of FIAT, and it's your son."

And so, although Umberto was never going to get the role

he had been waiting for all his life,

at that stage at least his son was going to take over.

Giovannino was a very clever boy, very hardworking,

so we all put a lot of...

hopes in him.

He was the one.

And, you know, everyone knew that

and... then he wasn't there anymore

in a very, very fast way.

He was 32 when they discovered this cancer.

They discovered it, like, in the spring

and he was dead by the end of that year.

He was this beautiful, beautiful boy,

so full of life.

He had just gotten married. He was waiting for a baby.

He was always smiling. He was always laughing.

He was-- he had everything.

Umberto was absolutely struck dead.

He never got out of the story about Giovannino.

Life has to-- has to go on,

so Agnelli told me...

I had to fill the position in the board.

The only person in the dynasty line...

was John.

Pigozzi: He found one of his grandsons

that he really liked.

He said, "My grandfather put me into the board of FIAT

when I was 21, so I don't see why I shouldn't do the same."

He asked me if I would go with him in his room,

and so I went with him in his room.

And he basically said, "I'm thinking of appointing you to the board."

And that was basically it.

I think he was an amazing grandfather.

I wouldn't have wanted to be his kid.

We had lunch and I remember at some point,

Edoardo said something and-- and Gianni...

really lashed out at him.

And so I thought, you know, "I can't believe that after all these years,

their relationship is still so strained

with a lack of respect on the part of his father."

Lupo: That was three days before Edoardo took his life.

Lapo: He jumped from 100 meters.

( Marconi speaking Italian )

de la Renta: The call came,

and when Marella came back to the table,

she was visibly distraught

and she said that she wanted to go for a walk.

de la Renta: She said now she knows why her father

told her the story about Francis of Assisi and Clare.

Clare's friend had thrown himself off the bridge.

And St. Francis wrote Clare saying,

"Clare, Clare, do not despair.

Between the bridge and the water, I was there."

My grandfather sadly had to go alone to recognize his son.

And he had my uncle restitched and reput in--

in an acceptable way

for my grandmother to see him.

Ruy: Gianni was completely devastated

and he said to me,

"God, you must have lots of guts

to throw yourself down from that sort of bridge."

Edoardo did it to show his father he had guts.

Caracciolo: When Edoardo died,

we went for the funeral

to the house in Villar Perosa.

Gianni at the end said,

"We should never forget that this was a happy house.

But this is not a happy house now."

I wrote him a letter.

And I told him to go to that...

that if he went to the Museum of Natural History

and looked at the cosmos...

he might think that there is...

an ultimate finish that we can't understand.

Or maybe not.

And he never answered that letter until a year later.

And, uh... said he had done it

and it had had some meaning for him.

Lapo: He got hit much more than my grandmother.

That made his body weaken.

Everything went downhill.

Cristiana:

He fell in a-- into a state of... what I thought was depression.

It was one of the saddest things I've ever seen

because...

you suddenly see a titan, somebody who's larger than life,

somebody that you really thought would never die

completely defeated.

Colombo: His funeral created the largest crowd

that the city of Turin has ever seen.

Alain: Workers, people of his own city

queued in-- in a cold winter day.

Maria Sole: When we stood up there,

all the family, my hands hurt so much,

I couldn't-- I had to give my left hand

because I couldn't give my right hand anymore.

And so many people said,

"I got something from your brother.

I got something. I had a friendship.

I had-- he gave work to my son.

He gave work to my brother." You know.

And they said, "When things in Turin were going badly...

we heard a helicopter pass through there.

We knew he was arriving in town and we were happy about it."

Pigozzi: He would never admit it, but he knew he was

the Prince of Italy.

He was the international image of Italy.

The most glamorous man in Italy.

He was the epitome of what an Italian should be.

Very polite, popular with ladies,

flamboyant enough, not too much.

Stable in a period of instability.

He was really a-- a prince.

John: Christmas cards were always done by my grandmother.

My grandfather was alive Christmas 2002, 2003.

He decided to work on his own Christmas card.

So he carefully picked three pictures--

of Stealth, which is this sailing boat

he was very proud to have built;

of Ferrari, who in 2002 won the world championship;

and finally, Juventus won the Italian championship,

the scudetto, in 2002.

He really wanted

to give a sign of vitality.

And it was a way of lifting the spirit.