Roberto Benigni

Benigni is currently directing a new film called "La tigre et la neve", shooting in Rome, Tunisia, and Umbria. He was knighted in 1992 for his services to acting. Benigni was censored again in the 1980s for calling the Pope John Paul II something impolite during an important live TV show. His famously mangled English is a put-on, apparently. His only serious relationship with a woman seems to have been with the actress, Capucine, though he had many female friends. It was an unprecedented fact, given that until that moment Italian politicians were proverbially serious and formal (and Berlinguer was perhaps the most serious one at all); it represented a breaking point, after which politicians experimented newer habits and "public manners", started frequenting less formal happenings and, generally speaking, modified their lifestyle in order to show a more popular, "familiar" look. For many years he shared a home with a male friend, but repeatedly denied that their relationship was anything other than platonic. Little after, he appeared during a public political demonstration of the Italian Communist Party (of which he was a sympathiser), and in this occasion he took in his arms and dandled the national leader Enrico Berlinguer, a very serious figure. Bogarde never married and, even during his lifetime, was reported to be homosexual.

A great scandal for the time, the series was suspended due to censorship. During the 1960s and 1970s, Bogarde gradually abandoned his heart-throb image for more challenging parts, such as the ex-Nazi in The Night Porter (1974), a bored University professor in Accident (1967), and, most notably, as Gustav von Aschenbach in Death in Venice (1971). 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. He quickly became a matinee idol. Benigni is also a well appreciated improvisatory poet (poesia estemporanea is a form of art popularly followed and practiced in Tuscany), and is appreciated for his recitations of Dante's Divina Commedia by memory. George Dixon in The Blue Lamp launched him as a lead player, but it was the comedy, Doctor in the House (1954), that made him a star. He also starred in the first of Jarmusch's series of short films Coffee and Cigarettes (1986). His 1950 appearance as the criminal who shot P.C.

In Down By Law (1986) he plays Bob, the innocent abroad, convicted for murder, whose irrepressible good humour and optimism help him escape and find love (also starring Braschi as his beloved.) In Night on Earth (1991) he plays a cabby in Rome, causing his passenger, a priest, great discomfort by confessing his revolting sexual experiences. He joined the army and served in World War II, after which his good looks helped him begin a career as a film actor. Benigni has starred in two films by American Director Jim Jarmusch. Bogarde was born in the London suburb of Hampstead, of mixed Dutch-British ancestry. Benigni's wife, Nicoletta Braschi, has starred with him in most of the films he directed. Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde (March 28, 1921 - May 8, 1999), better known by the stage name Dirk Bogarde, was an actor. With the very popular comic actor Massimo Troisi, he played in Non ci resta che piangere (nothing left for us, but crying), a fable in which the protagonists are suddenly thrown back in time up to 15th century, just a little before 1492, so they start looking for Columbus in order to stop him before discovering the Americas, but obviously they are not able to reach him. Dirk Bogarde: The Complete Career Illustrated w/Robert Tanitch.

Benigni also directed The Monster (Il Mostro), Il piccolo diavolo (with Walter Matthau) and Johnny Stecchino. Dirk Bogarde: The Complete Autobiography. Benigni's father had spent two years in a concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen, and La Vita è bella is based in part on his father's experiences; the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor (Benigni directed himself). An Orderly Man. Benigni is probably best known for his tragicomedy Life Is Beautiful (La Vita è bella), filmed in Cortona, about a man who tries to protect his son during his internment at a Nazi concentration camp, by telling him that the Holocaust is an elaborate game and he must adhere very carefully to the rules to win. A Postilion Struck by Lightning. He was born in Misericordia, Tuscany, Italy. Victim (1961).

Roberto Benigni (born October 27, 1952) is an Italian film and television actor and director. Song Without End. A Tale of Two Cities (1958). The Spanish Gardener (1956). The Blue Lamp (1950).