Paolo Villaggio
Encyclopedia
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...
actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
.
Life
Villaggio was born in GenoaGenoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
in 1932. His jobs included being a clerk for the Italsider steel major which inspired his character "Il ragioniere Fantozzi Ugo", "the accountant Ugo Fantozzi". Maurizio Costanzo
Maurizio Costanzo
Maurizio Costanzo is an Italian television host and journalist. He is married to Maria De Filippi, an Italian television host.-Biography:Costanzo was born in Rome....
discovered his artistic potential and in 1967 he advised Villaggio to play in a cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. From there, Villaggio was hired for the TV programme Quelli della domenica (Those guys of Sunday), in which Fantozzi made his first appearance, as did the aggressive "Professor Kranz" and the hypocritical "Giandomenico Fracchia".
His name means literally, in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Paul Village.
Accountant Ugo Fantozzi
After his television experience, Villaggio started writing, for the magazines L'EspressoL'Espresso
l'Espresso is an Italian newsmagazine. It is one of the two most prominent Italian weeklies, the other being Panorama. Since the latter has been acquired by right-wing tycoon and politician Silvio Berlusconi, l'Espresso enjoys the reputation of being the main politically independent newsmagazine...
and L'Europeo
L'Europeo
L'Europeo was a prominent Italian weekly news magazine launched on November 4, 1945, by the founder-editors Gianni Mazzocchi and Arrigo Benedetti. The magazine stopped publication in 1995.-Orientation:...
, short stories featuring Fantozzi, a man with a weak character, dogged by misfortune and by the "mega-director" of the "mega-company" where he works. In 1971 the publishing house Rizzoli
RCS MediaGroup
RCS MediaGroup S.p.A. , based in Milan and listed on the Italian Stock Exchange, is an international multimedia publishing group that operates in daily newspapers, magazines and books, radio broadcasting, new media and digital and satellite TV...
released the book Fantozzi, a collection of these stories, which sold over a million copies.
The first book received the Gogol Prize in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and led to him starring in the film Fantozzi
Fantozzi (film)
Fantozzi is a 1975 cult Italian comedy movie. It is the first film in the saga of the unlucky Italian clerk Ugo Fantozzi, played by its creator, Paolo Villaggio.- Plot :...
, directed by Luciano Salce
Luciano Salce
Luciano Salce was an Italian film director and actor. His 1962 film Le pillole di Ercole was shown as part of a retrospective on Italian comedy at the 67th Venice International Film Festival....
in 1975. Its success led to a sequel, Il secondo tragico Fantozzi
Il secondo tragico Fantozzi
Il secondo tragico Fantozzi is an Italian comedy film released in 1976. It is the second film in the saga of the unlucky clerk Ugo Fantozzi, played by its creator, Paolo Villaggio....
, with the same director in the following year, in which Fantozzi delivered his most famous line: "Per me ... La Corazzata Kotiomkin [sic] ... è una cagata pazzesca", or roughly "For me The Battleship Kotemkin [sic] is an unbelievable load of crap".
Other films
Villaggio has played in numerous comedies. Directors he has worked with include: Federico FelliniFederico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
(La voce della luna
La voce della luna
The Voice of the Moon is a 1990 film by Italian director Federico Fellini, featuring actors Paolo Villaggio and Roberto Benigni. Returning to themes he first explored in La strada , Fellini crafts a parable on the whisperings of the soul that only madmen and vagabonds are capable of hearing...
of 1990, together with Roberto Benigni
Roberto Benigni
Roberto Remigio Benigni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter and director of film, theatre and television.- Early years :...
), Lina Wertmuller
Lina Wertmüller
Lina Wertmüller is an Italian film writer and director of aristocratic Swiss descent. In 1976, she became the first woman ever to be nominated for an Academy Award for Directing with the film Seven Beauties.-Biography:...
(Io speriamo che me la cavo
Ciao, Professore!
Ciao, Professore! is a 1992 Italian "fish out of water" comedy film about an elementary school teacher from northern Italy who is sent by mistake to an impoverished town in the Naples region of southern Italy...
, 1992), Ermanno Olmi
Ermanno Olmi
Ermanno Olmi is a renowned Italian film director.-Biography:Olmi was born in Bergamo, Lombardy. He is married to Loredana Detto, who played Antonietta Masetti in Il Posto....
(Il segreto del bosco vecchio, 1993), Mario Monicelli
Mario Monicelli
Mario Monicelli was an Italian director and screenwriter and one of the masters of the Commedia all'Italiana , three times nominated for Oscar.-Biography:...
(Cari fottutissimi amici, 1994) and Gabriele Salvatores
Gabriele Salvatores
Gabriele Salvatores , is an Italian Academy Award-winning film director and screenwriter.-Biography:Born in Naples, Salvatores debuted as a theatre director in 1972, founding in Milan the Teatro dell'Elfo, for which he directed several avant-garde pieces until 1989.In that year, he directed his...
(Denti, 2000). Among the cinema awards received by Villaggio are the David di Donatello
David di Donatello
David di Donatello, named after Donatello's David, is a movie award assigned each year for cinematic performances and production by Ente David di Donatello, part of Accademia del Cinema Italiano. It is the Italian equivalent to the Academy Award. There are 24 categories as of 2006.- History :The...
del 1990, the Nastro d'Argento
Nastro d'Argento
The Nastro d'Argento is a movie award assigned each year, since 1946, for cinematic performances and production by Sindacato Nazionale dei Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani, the association of Italian film critics...
in 1992 and the Golden Lion
Golden Lion
Il Leone d’Oro is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes...
for his entire career in 1996.
During his film career, Villaggio never ceased his activity as a writer, moving to Mondadori publishing house in 1994. He published Fantozzi saluta e se ne va (1994–1995; "Fantozzi Says Goodbye and Leaves"), Vita morte e miracoli di un pezzo di merda ("Life, Death and Miracles of a Piece of Shit", 2002), 7 grammi in 70 anni ("7 Grammes in 70 Years", 2003) and his last one Sono incazzato come una belva ("I'm Fucking Mad as a Beast") in 2004.
He also acted, playing Arpagone in L'Avare of Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
in 1996. In the same year, he also led the satirical news bulletin Striscia la notizia
Striscia la notizia
Striscia la notizia is an Italian television program on the Mediaset-controlled Canale 5. Its name in Italian translates as "the news slithers", a probable parody of the slighting italian journalist, submitted to politicians and overwhelmed with shame...
(broadcast on Canale 5
Canale 5
Canale 5 is an Italian private television network of Mediaset, the media branch of Fininvest. Canale 5 was the first private television network to have a national coverage in Italy in 1980, based on a local channel, TeleMilano 58, founded in 1978....
), together with Ezio Greggio
Ezio Greggio
Ezio Greggio is an Italian comedian, actor, writer and film director.In Italy he is mostly known for his long lasting appearances in TV shows like Drive In and Striscia la Notizia, while abroad he his noted for his movies and his collaboration with Mel Brooks.-TV career:Born in Cossato, a small...
. More recently, he participated in the television fiction Carabinieri, in which he played the role of a tramp who often helped the law enforcement into the solving cases. With his friend and fellow Genoan Fabrizio De André
Fabrizio De André
Fabrizio De André was an Italian singer-songwriter.Known for his sympathies towards anarchism, libertarianism, and pacifism, he also was a convicted atheist , and his songs often featured marginalized and rebellious people, prostitutes and knaves, and attacked the Catholic Church...
Villaggio wrote two songs, "Carlo Martello torna dalla battaglia di Poitiers" and "Il fannullone" ("Charles Martel
Charles Martel
Charles Martel , also known as Charles the Hammer, was a Frankish military and political leader, who served as Mayor of the Palace under the Merovingian kings and ruled de facto during an interregnum at the end of his life, using the title Duke and Prince of the Franks. In 739 he was offered the...
returning from the Battle of Poitiers" and "The Loafer", respectively).
Filmography
- Eat it (1968)
- I Quattro del Pater Noster (1969)
- Il terribile ispettore (1969)
- Pensando a te (1969)
- Brancaleone alle crociateBrancaleone alle CrociateBrancaleone at the Crusades is an Italian comedy film directed by Mario Monicelli in 1970, the sequel of the famous L'armata Brancaleone.-Plot:...
(1970) - Senza famiglia, nullatenenti cercano affetto (1972)
- Beati i ricchi (1972)
- La torta in cielo (1973)
- Che c'entriamo noi con la rivoluzione? (1973)
- Non toccare la donna biancaDon't Touch The White Woman!Don't Touch The White Woman! is a 1974 French-Italian farce, an absurd "Western" set in Paris, directed by Marco Ferreri. Marcello Mastroianni stars as a vain General George Armstrong Custer. Richard Nixon is the American president. Buffalo Bill Cody is here portrayed as a charlatan media impresario...
(1974) - Vado, sistemo l'America e torno (1974)
- Alla mia cara mamma nel giorno del suo compleanno (1974)
- La mazurka del barone, della santa e del fico fiorone (1975)
- FantozziFantozzi (film)Fantozzi is a 1975 cult Italian comedy movie. It is the first film in the saga of the unlucky Italian clerk Ugo Fantozzi, played by its creator, Paolo Villaggio.- Plot :...
(1975) - Di che segno sei?Di che segno sei?Di che segno sei? is a 1975 Italian comedy film directed by Sergio Corbucci.-Cast:*Mafalda Berri*Ugo Bologna ... Commendatore Bravetti*Gil Cagne ... Ballerino*Giuliana Calandra ... Maria Bompazzi*Lilli Carati...
(1976) - Signore e signori, buonanotte (1976)
- Quelle strane occasioni (1976)
- Il secondo tragico FantozziIl secondo tragico FantozziIl secondo tragico Fantozzi is an Italian comedy film released in 1976. It is the second film in the saga of the unlucky clerk Ugo Fantozzi, played by its creator, Paolo Villaggio....
(1976) - Il Signor Robinson (1976)
- Il Belpaese (1977)
- Dove vai in vacanza? (1977)
- Tre tigri contro tre tigri (1977)
- Io tigro, tu tigri, egli tigra (1978)
- Professor Kranz tedesco di GermaniaProfessor Kranz tedesco di GermaniaProfessor Kranz tedesco di Germania is a 1978 Italian comedy film directed by Luciano Salce and starring Paolo Villaggio.Despite the title the character played by Villaggio bears little resemblance from the one he played on Italian television shows under the same moniker...
(1978) - Quando c'era Lui... caro Lei! (1978)
- Dottor Jekyll e gentile signora (1979)
- Rag. Arturo De Fanti, bancario precario (1979)
- La locandiera (1980)
- MirandolinaMirandolinaMirandolina is a comic opera in three acts by Bohuslav Martinů, with a libretto by the composer after Carlo Goldoni's comedy The Mistress of the Inn ....
(1980) - Fantozzi contro tuttiFantozzi contro tuttiFantozzi contro tutti is an Italian comedy film, released in 1980) is the third film in the saga of the unlucky clerk Ugo Fantozzi, played by its creator, Paolo Villaggio.It is the first movie in which Fantozzi's wife, Pina, is played by Milena Vukotic....
(1980, also director) - Fracchia la belva umanaFracchia la belva umanaFracchia la belva umana is a 1981 Italian comedy film directed by Neri Parenti. It was shown as part of a retrospective on Italian comedy at the 67th Venice International Film Festival.-Cast:* Paolo Villaggio - Giandomenico Fracchia / La Belva Umana...
(1981) - Il turnoIl TurnoThe Turn is the name of Luigi Pirandello's second novel. Originally published in Catania in 1902 by the editor Niccolò Giannotta, it was republished by the Fratelli Treves publishing house, along with the novella Lontano, with the subtitle Novellas of Luigi Pirandello in 1915...
(1981) - Pappa e Ciccia (1982)
- Bonnie e Clyde all'italiana (1982)
- Sogni mostruosamente proibiti (1983)
- Fantozzi subisce ancora (1983)
- A tu per tu (1984)
- Sogni e bisogni (1984)
- SuperfantozziSuperfantozziSuperfantozzi is an Italian film from 1986. It is the fifth film in the saga of the unlucky clerk Ugo Fantozzi, played by its creator, Paolo Villaggio. In this film, Fantozzi is portrayed in a surreal historical journey, from Genesis to 1980s....
(1985) - I pompieri (1985)
- Fracchia contro Dracula (1985)
- Scuola di ladri (1986)
- Grandi Magazzini (1986)
- Roba da ricchi (1987)
- Rimini, Rimini (1987)
- Scuola di ladri - seconda parte (1987)
- Missione eroica. I pompieri 2 (1987)
- Come è dura l'avventura (1987)
- Il volponeIl volponeIl volpone is an Italian movie directed in 1988 by Maurizio Ponzi, inspired by Ben Jonson's comedy with the same name.Set in the Ligurian Riviera during the 1980s, it features Paolo Villaggio as Ugo Maria Volpone, a rich but apparently ill ship company owner...
(1988) - Fantozzi va in pensione (1988)
- La voce della lunaLa voce della lunaThe Voice of the Moon is a 1990 film by Italian director Federico Fellini, featuring actors Paolo Villaggio and Roberto Benigni. Returning to themes he first explored in La strada , Fellini crafts a parable on the whisperings of the soul that only madmen and vagabonds are capable of hearing...
(1989) - Ho vinto la lotteria di Capodanno (1989)
- Fantozzi alla riscossa (1990)
- Le Comiche (1990)
- Io speriamo che me la cavoCiao, Professore!Ciao, Professore! is a 1992 Italian "fish out of water" comedy film about an elementary school teacher from northern Italy who is sent by mistake to an impoverished town in the Naples region of southern Italy...
(1992) - Le Comiche 2 (1992)
- Il segreto del bosco vecchio (1993)
- Fantozzi in paradisoFantozzi in paradisoFantozzi in Paradiso is the eighth film of "fantozzian" saga. In this film, Fantozzi dies. It is followed by Fantozzi - il ritorno....
(1993) - Cari fottutissimi amiciDear Goddamned FriendsDear Goddamned Friends is a 1994 Italian comedy film directed by Mario Monicelli. It was entered into the 44th Berlin International Film Festival where it won an Honourable Mention.-Cast:* Paolo Villaggio as Dieci* Massimo Ceccherini as Marlini...
(1994) - Le nuove comiche (1994)
- Palla di neve (1995)
- Io no spik inglish (1995)
- Camerieri (1995)
- Fantozzi - Il ritorno (1996)
- Banzai (1997)
- Un bugiardo in Paradiso (1998)
- Per motivi di famiglia (1998)
- Fantozzi 2000 - La clonazioneFantozzi 2000 - La clonazioneFantozzi 2000 - La clonazione is an Italian comedy film released in 1999. It is the tenth and final film in the saga of the unlucky clerk Ugo Fantozzi, played by its creator, Paolo Villaggio....
(1999) - AzzurroAzzurro"Azzurro" is an Italian pop song composed by Paolo Conte and Michele Virano. Its most famous version was recorded by Adriano Celentano in 1968....
(2000) - Denti (2000)
- Hermano (2000)
- I promessi sposi (2001)
- HeidiHeidiHeidi is a Swiss work of fiction, published in two parts as Heidi's years of learning and travel and Heidi makes use of what she has learned.It is a novel about the events in the life of a young girl in her grandfather's care, in the Swiss Alps...
(2001) - San Giovanni - L'apocalisse (2002)
- Gas (2005)
- Hermano (2007)
- Torno a vivere da solo (2008)
- Questione di cuore (2009)
- Generazione mille euro (2009)