Actor, writer and director Paolo
Villaggio, one of the greats of Italian comedy, died at a Rome
clinic on Monday at the age of 84.
"Bye Dad, now you are free to fly," Villaggio's daughter
Elisabetta said on 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 Il
secondo tragico Fantozzi (The Second Tragic Fantozzi, 1976) .
"I recall Paolo Villaggio," Premier Paolo Gentiloni said via
Twitter.
"Extraordinary comic talent who taught generations of
Italians to recognize their mannerisms".
The actor will lie in State at Rome city hall early on
Wednesday so fans can pay their respects before a non-religious
funeral later that day at Rome's Casa del Cinema (Home of
Cinema) centre, his children said.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
