Melbourne furniture king Franco Cozzo furniture king’s story to hit the big screen in tell-all biopic

Infamous furniture boss Franco Cozzo is swapping grand sales for grand tales in a tell-all biopic while will chronicle his rags to riches story.

Furniture king Franco Cozzo’s biopic will screen at the Melbourne International Film Festival. Picture: David Caird

Furniture king Franco Cozzo is swapping grand sales for grand tales in a tell-all biopic premiering at the Melbourne International Film Festival in August.

“I don’t mind a movie about me at all because this who I am, and this is who I was,” Cozzo, 78, said. “It’s a true story of an immigrant who arrived in Australia with no penny in his pocket, and today, still no money in the pocket.”

Palazzo di Cozzo, made by Melbourne film maker Madeleine Martiniello, tells a rags story, but with iconic stores in Brunswick and Footscray, and his famous “megalo” TV commercials, there are definitely riches.

Cozzo arrived in Melbourne from Sicily in 1956. He was 21.

Franco Cozzo outside his former Footscray store in 2017. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

“I loved Melbourne from the first day I got here,” Cozzo said. “I come here for work. But

when I knock on the door, they call me Mussolini. They think I come here to make trouble.”

Cozzo chose the furniture business because “it’s gentle … and it has more to do with family people.”

Today, Cozzo and his stores are institutions.

“I can’t go walking in the street because people stop me. They come to the store to have a photo with me. Everyday, everyday, everyday. I’m very proud to come from nothing and be famous.”

Cozzo hopes the film Palazzo di Cozzo shows him as a “peaceful, happy man,” adding: “Money or no money didn’t make a difference. I never changed.”

MIFF runs from August 5 to 22.