Late actor, writer and director Paolo
Villaggio, one of the greats of Italian comedy, lay in State at
Rome city hall on Wednesday so fans could pay their respects.
There will be a non-religious ceremony later in the day at
Rome's Casa del Cinema (Home of Cinema) centre.
Hundreds of people field past Villaggio's coffin on the same
day that publishers reissued his books about his iconic bumbling
bookkeeper tragicomic anti-hero Ugo Fantozzi.
Villaggio died in a Rome clinic on Monday at the age of 84.
Villaggio is best known for the character Fantozzi, who he
played in a series of movies that produced some of Italian
cinema's most memorable moments.
These included Fantozzi declaring that Battleship Kotiomkin,
a parody of Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin, was a
"cagata pazzesca" - "an incredible piece of crap" - in Il
secondo tragico Fantozzi (The Second Tragic Fantozzi, 1976) .
Oscar-winning comic actor and director Roberto Benigni said
Villaggio, with whom he appeared in Fedreico Fellini's last film
La Voce della Luna (1990), "was the greatest clown of his
generation, a pitiless, revolutionary, liberating child."
He said "Fantozzi represents us all, humiliates us and
corrects us; with him all anonymous people found their Lord. He
was the most unpredictable and purest person I ever met.
"Thank you dear Paolo, we are beholden to you for an immense
joy", said the Life Is Beautiful director and actor.
"I recall Paolo Villaggio," Premier Paolo Gentiloni said via
Twitter.
"Extraordinary comic talent who taught generations of
Italians to recognize their mannerisms".
The Genoa native started out in the 1960s as a cabaret
artist.
He went on to work in television, playing several comic
characters.
He also penned a series of short stories picking fun at the
habits of Italy's lower middle classes featuring Fantozzi, an
unlucky clerk with a troubled work and family life.
The character was at the centre of a series of best-selling
books and 10 films that made Villaggio one of the country's
best-loved celebrities.
But Villaggio was not just Fantozzi.
He acted in many other comedies and worked with several great
directors, including Federico Fellini, Lina Wertmller, Ermanno
Olmi, Mario Monicelli and Gabriele Salvatores.
Early on, he had also penned lyrics to songs by great
Genoa-born singer-songwriter Fabrizio De Andre', one of his many
friends.
President Sergio Mattarella's office said in a statement that
the head of State had expressed "condolences for the loss of...
an actor of talent who was able to portray the vices and virtues
of the Italian people shrewdly and effectively".
Culture Minister Dario Franceschini paid tribute to an
"extraordinary, multifaceted actor and author".
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