Renny Ottolina

Forever, the Number One Animator of Venezuela

Here's a time line of Renny Ottolina's life:

• 1928: Renaldo José Ottolina Pinto, best knowed as Renny Ottolina, was born in Valencia, Carabobo, Venezuela
• 1945: At the age of seventeen, Renny started working in the Radio Station "Radio Caracas".
• 1952: Renny began his television career, serving as host of the opening of the extinct "Televisora Nacional".
• 1954: He was hired by the private television station RCTV to host "Lo de hoy", a morning variety show with music and interviews.
• 1958: He traveled to France and participates along with the automobile entrepreneur Lino Fayen and the automobile racer Armando Capriles in the 24 hours race of Le Mans, under his own team, driving a Mercedes Benz vehicle although he did not manage to win it.
• 1959: The ABC network took note of Ottolina and brought him to New York, to star in his own TV show. Even though he had a Latin accent, after a short time they moved him to compete with Jack Paar.
• 1960: ABC acquired 45% of the stocks in Televisa, the first privately owned television station in Venezuela, where they offered Ottolina the post of director general. But Ottolina resigned when he solicited stocks in exchange of his full attention.
• 1960: Ottolina returned to RCTV to host his own show, "El Show de Renny" format variety magazine every day at noon.
• 1965: Ottolina began hosting another show on RCTV called Renny Presenta... (Renny Presents...), aired at Sunday nights, in which he mostly featured music and would focus on Venezuela and its natural beauties.
• 1971: Renny is hired by the television channel Cadena Venezolana de Televisión. Ottolina marks a milestone in Venezuelan television, by making the first Venezuelan television program in colors with the collaboration of the Bolívar Films film company and the participation of Venezuelan artists such as José Luis Rodríguez, the musician and singer Carlos Moreán and the singer and then actress, Nora Suárez.
• 1972: He creates along with Eva Franceschi and Miriam Fletcher, the Foundation for the Protection of Metropolitan Police, FUNDAPOL, of which he was its first president..
• 1973: Renny interviewed the most important presidential candidates in his midday program with real options for victory, such as Carlos Andrés Pérez and Lorenzo Fernández.
• 1973: The three private television stations RCTV, Venevisión and CVTV, agreed in "the meeting of the Three Apostles" to eliminate the figure of independent producer, forcing those who exercised this function to be able to have TV projections should be part of the payroll of those channels ; which implied that the income obtained by independent producers, as a result of the sale of advertising guidelines, would become net for the channels. Ottolina refuses to be part of the payroll of a private channel because it would lose its independence of creativity and to express its thoughts in a clear and free way, for which the contract in CVTV is not renewed and no other station tried to obtain its services, reason for which the last program of the series "Renny Presents" is broadcast on December 31, 1973 and will mark the forced withdrawal of television from "Number 1".
• 1974: Renny is hired by the now extinct Directorate of Land Transit to make propaganda about the rules for transit and its "Good Citizen" campaign. Then, in an agreement with the television channel Venevision Ottolina produces and presents a space totally in colors entitled The Planet of Water, on the occasion of the celebration of the UN Sea Conference in the then recently opened complex of buildings "Caracas Central Park".
• 1976: Between 1974 and 1976 he lives in the United States, at the request of his daughters and returns in late 1976 when he starts a morning radio program on Radio Capital called "Renny en su Radio", where he becomes the main critic of the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez, who came to be labeled as an incapable government, despite being in the past a supporter of the now deceased former president.
• 1977: The MIN (National Integrity Movement) party is founded in this year. Renny agrees to launch as a presidential candidate for the 1978 elections.
• 1978: On March 16, 1978 while traveling to a meeting of entrepreneurs that was to take place in Porlamar, Isla de Margarita, the Cessna 310 plane piloted by the lawyer and air pilot Carlos Olavarría and where they also traveled their Campaign Manager Ciro Medina, Luis Duque and César Oropeza, crashes in the vicinity of Pico Naiguatá, incident in which all the occupants of the same died.