Remo Saraceni, the sculptor, toy inventor and technology visionary best known for creating the walking piano that Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia danced on in a beloved scene in the 1988 hit movie “Big,” died June 3 in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. He was 89 years old.
The cause of death was heart failure, said Benjamin Medaw, Saraceni's assistant and caregiver. Saraceni died at Medaw's home, where he had lived for the past few years.
Saraceni's specialty is “interactive electronics,” he told New York Magazine in 1976. His other inventions include a clock that spoke when you asked it the time, a stethoscope stereo system that played the sound of a heartbeat, and a Plexiglas cloud that glowed in pastel colors to match the lighting in a room when a whistle was played — all powered by what Saraceni called “human energy”: human voice, touch, and body heat.
The technology's ability to captivate its users became a key story element in Big, and the central prop in one of the most fondly remembered scenes in recent movie history.
The film's protagonist, Josh Baskin, is transformed from a 12-year-old boy into a young man (played by Hanks) after making a wish to become “big” on the magical Zoltar fortune-telling machine. He takes an office job at a toy company. One Saturday at FAO Schwartz (a toy retailer whose flagship store was then on 58th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan), owner Mac (Robert Loggia) recognizes Josh as an employee. Mac is a shrewd capitalist who studies industry trends, while Josh is a boy who delights in the world of toys (albeit in a man's body).
As Josh impresses Mac with his in-depth knowledge of FAO Schwarz products, they stumble upon Saraceni's nearly 16-foot walking piano. Josh begins bopping on the piano with childlike fascination to the tune of “Heart and Soul.” Inspired by Josh's unconscious joy, Mac joins in, and the two perform a duet, playing “Chopsticks” in front of an awed audience.
Mac appoints Josh as the company's vice president of product development, which sets the rest of the film in motion.
“Every time we shot a scene, it was like jumping rope for three and a half hours,” Hanks told Playboy magazine in 1989. “We rehearsed until we were exhausted.”
The film grossed more than $150 million, catapulted Hanks to Hollywood stardom, earned him his first Academy Award nomination (for Best Actor), and inspired decades of visitor attendance at FAO Schwarz, where it was common for hundreds of people in sneakers, sandals and loafers to line up to play keyboards on any given day.
“Even if you don't know how to play the piano with your fingers, you can play it with your feet,” Saraceni told the New York Post in 2013.
According to sports and pop culture site The Ringer, he unveiled the earliest form of the piano at the Philadelphia Civic Center Museum in 1970. Called the “Musical Daisy,” it was an interactive sculpture with eight fluffy petals that played different notes when you sat on it. He continued to experiment with the idea, turning the daisy into a musical carpet and unveiling his piano concept in 1982 at his Philadelphia studio.
FAO Schwartz acquired a walking piano soon after, and in 1985 the store's new management tried to turn it into a film and TV location: Anne Spielberg, Steven Spielberg's sister and one of the screenwriters for “Big,” visited the store and “came back raving about” the piano, another screenwriter, Gary Ross, told The Ringer.
At the request of director Penny Marshall, Saraceni built a new version of the piano that has three octaves instead of one, and whose keys light up when played.
Although none of Saraceni's other inventions became as famous as the piano, many of his other inventions captivated people as well.
Remo Saraceni was born on January 15, 1935 in Fossacesia, a city on the Adriatic coast of Italy. His father, Giuseppe, worked with his relatives in the shoe and leather goods manufacturing business, and his mother, Filomena Carulli, continued the family business.
Remo began inventing as a boy, and as he told the Chestnut Hill Local, he once got his father in trouble when he turned a Mussolini poster into a kite.
He took electronics classes in Milan and served as a radar expert in the Italian military, but also worked as a TV repairman as a civilian. He also started his own brand of large, suitcase-like portable turntables. In 1964, he went to the World's Fair and traveled to the United States in search of a better life, even though he couldn't speak English, had no American friends, and no savings.
He found work again as a television repairman and posted a note on his bathroom mirror saying, “America is a place where anything is possible.”
He married Maria Francione in 1965. They divorced in 1976, but remarried in 1995 when she became ill and died shortly thereafter. He is survived by his sons Ugo and Luca, and two grandchildren.
At the height of his success, in the early 1990s, Saraceni had a 20,000-square-foot workshop in Philadelphia with about 20 employees. Kids especially loved visiting, and many of Saraceni's clients were children's museums around the world. For them, he created devices like a “musical hand,” which consisted of sheet music with motion sensors attached. Kids could wave their hands like a conductor, and classical music would play in sync with their movements.
Since “Big,” Saraceni's work has exploded in popularity, but he's also had to spend his time chasing down copycats and suing companies for trademark infringement.
In his later years, Saraceni was embroiled in a legal battle with Three Sixty Group, a company that bought FAO Schwarz in 2016. Medaugh, Saraceni's heir and executor, said he would continue the lawsuit, alleging that the store sold counterfeits of Saraceni's work without properly compensating him, leaving him impoverished.
Meddau said Saraceni's pianos, which cost between $6,000 and $16,500 depending on the size, can still be purchased by emailing info@bigpiano.com. These pianos symbolize the possibility of a healthy, yet fantastical, relationship between humans and technology.
“Technology should live and breathe with you,” Saraceni told the Daily News in 1983. “Technology should react to you, not you react to it.”
