Actor, writer and director Paolo Villaggio, one of the greats of Italian comedy, has died at a Rome clinic at the age of 84. "By Dad, now you are free to fly," Villaggio's daughter Elisabetta said in her Facebook page on Monday.
Villaggio is best known for the character of bumbling bookkeeper Ugo 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 The Second Tragic Fantozzi.
"I recall Paolo Villaggio," Premier Paolo Gentiloni said via Twitter. "Extraordinary comic talent who taught generations of Italians to recognize their mannerisms".
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