Iva Zanicchi

Biography

Iva is an Italian pop singer and politician. Her career began in 1962 at the Castrocaro Music Festival, where she earned third place. She won the Sanremo song festival in 1967 ,1969  and again in 1974 . Zanicchi remains the only woman singer to have won that festival’s prize three times. In 1969, she represented Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest. She represented Italy in the V Festival Internacional da Canção in Rio 1970. A concert at the Paris Olympia and a tour (United States, Canada, South America and the Soviet Union) followed. Iva later also toured Australia and Japan. Sh has worked with Mikis Theodorakis, Charles Aznavour and Luigi Tenco, and has made numerous recordings. She  performed at Madison Square Gardens, New York (1974) and the Teatro Regio (Parma). In total, Zanicchi released 14 albums during the 1970s, including a Christmas-themed, Neapolitan and Spanish language recordings.
From 1987 to 2000 Zanicchi hosted the television game show Ok, il prezzo è giusto!, the Italian version of The Price Is Right as the only female host in the history of the game show worldwide.
In 2004 she was one of Forza Italia’s candidates at the European Parliament elections, polling nearly 35,000 but not enough to be elected. However, as the highest-polling among the candidates failing to be elected, Iva took up her seat in Strasburg in May 2008, representing Forza Italia, when Euro MP Mario Mantovani left to become a PdL senator. She was confirmed in her post at the European elections of June 2009.