Agnelli

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.

- ( crowd cheering ) - 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.

- ( cheering ) - ( band playing )

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.