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In a very special city like Venice. And so Gianfranco had decided to try in the new world, the victorious vital rich America. 

For months he had been stranded among the skyscrapers of Manhattan: it was the time of the return of veterans and strict laws forbade the hiring of foreigners. But Gianfranco was not discouraged, also because circumstances had given him a hand. In fact, he soon discovered that life in New York was anything but unpleasant. He had met a childhood friend of his, Lorian Franchetti, Nanuck's sister. And other friends, of various nationalities. He had spent the end of the year with them in an apartment in the Tower of the Waldorf Astoria, as a guest of Elene van Zulian, who would later marry a Rothschild, and that evening at the piano he had started playing Piero Piccionia, whom I had met in Cortina, before he got famous. He had been having a drink with Kennedy, Pat and Eunice; and at a party in a suite of the Ambassador, guest of Carlo di Robilant's sister, the Duchess Olga di Cadaval, where among others there were also the bullfighter Concita Citron, the journalist Elsa Maxwell and Kussevitzky, the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic.

He had been to Broadway, where Etherl Merman and Benny Goodman with his clarinet, to the Blue Angels, and to the Maisonette where Juny Wilson singing and dancing was making fun of the best-seller of the moment, the Kinsey report. He also went, with some friends, to visit the Actor's Studio where he met a promising actor, Henry Fonda - who would later marry Lorian's younger sister, Afdera.

He saw his friend Guido Cantelli again, whom Toscanini considered as his only possible heir, so much so that he had allowed him to direct the NBC orchestra. Invited by Guido to attend the rehearsals, Gianfranco had been able to personally see the great master's meticulousness. 

The job search ended one evening at Saint Regis,...