Celebrity Biographies
Franco Citti
He became popular after starring in “Accatone”, the debut of Pier Paolo Pasolini, with whom he worked on several more films, and appeared in titles such as “The Godfather” and “The Godfather 3”. Franco Citti has died in the Italian capital at the age of 80. “With Franco, that world that Pasolini sought dies,” said Ninetto Davoli, the other actor who is a filmmaker’s fetish.
Born on April 23, 1935 in Fuimicino, the town where the airport near Rome is located, Franco Citti had not even thought of dedicating himself to acting when he was a young marginal, who became one of the students of a young teacher, Pier Paolo Pasolini , with whom he became friends, and who, together with his brother, Sergio Citti, helped them discover the Eternal City.
Pasolini, who was looking for a non-professional actor, recruited him to head the cast of his debut feature, Accattone , from 1961, starring a young pimp. Due to his stuttering, Alfredo Bini, the film’s producer, forced the director to dub him. But his face, full of authenticity, conquered moviegoers.
He would return in a similar role in Mamma Roma , a portrait of the characters from the outskirts of the city. He would put himself under his command again in Pigsty , Oedipus Rex , and in The Decameron , The Canterbury Tales and The Thousand and One Nights , which make up the so-called “Life Trilogy”. He also had prominent roles in the films of other filmmakers, such as in Kill Them and Come Back , by Enzo G. Castellari , and especially in The Godfather and The Godfather III , where he was an escort for Michael Corleone on his visits to Sicily. . bernardo bertolucciit turned him into a mature homosexual who tried to seduce the protagonist in La luna .
“I realized that if I tried to speak proper Italian or tried to be or imitate a conservatory or theater school actor, it wouldn’t be me, it would be a fake,” he said in an interview. Franco Citti directed Vergogna , a short that denounced that the place where Pasolini was assassinated had been abandoned, converted into a dump. The interpreter spent the last years of his life away from the spotlight, in his hometown.