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Roberto Benigni: Italy
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Born in Misericordia, Italy, Roberto Benigni learned to improvise songs and poems while in his teens. Although his early ambitions were to become either a priest or an accountant, he instead became part of Rome's underground theater in the late 1960s. His onscreen debut came in the film Berlinguer ti voglio bene (1977), which he co-wrote. Soon after, he landed his own TV series, which propelled him to stardom in his native country and gained him notice in the international film industry. In 1986 he made his first English language film, Down by Law (1986), filmed in Louisiana. Back in Italy, he joined an all-star international cast in his second English-language film, Night on Earth (1991).
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Benigni remains immensely popular in Italy, evidenced by the huge crowds that attended his mock political rallies in 1995 and 1996, where he skewered one of his favorite targets—politicians. One would hope that in the future his great talent could be exposed to a larger North American audience—perhaps through a collaboration with an American director, given Benigni's self-acknowledged limitations in that area. In any event, there is no doubt that Benigni will in the not-too-distant future be added to the pantheon of comedic giants to which rising film comedians are compared.
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[A]round the world, Benigni is ... known as a filmmaker with his own unique style. Among the films he has written, directed and starred in are "Johnny Stecchino," the story of a mild-mannered bus driver who just happens to be the spitting image of one of Italy's most-wanted mobsters, which became the most successful film in the history of- Italian cinema; the successful "The Little Devil," in which he co-stars with Walter Matthau; and "The Monster" (Il Mostro), another blockbuster Italian comedy about an ordinary man mistaken for a serial killer. Benigni took home a David di Donatello award (Italy's equivalent to an Oscar) for Best Actor for his performances in both "Johnny Stecchino" and "The Little Devil."
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Very popular in Italy, Benigni became famous in the 1970s for a shocking TV series called Televacca, by Renzo Arbore, in which he interpreted a particular hymn on specific biological functions. A great scandal for the time, the series was suspended due to censorship.
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