Roberto Benigni Wiki, Biography, Age, Net Worth, Contact & Informations

Roberto Benigni
Wiki, Biography, Age, Net Worth, Contact & Informations

Here you can learn about Roberto Benigni’s career and curiosities about the private life, read the latest news, find all the awards won and watch photos and videos.

PERSONAL DATA OF ROBERTO BENIGNI

Age: 68 years old

Born in: MISERICORDIA, Arezzo (Italy)
Born on: 27/10/1952

BIOGRAPHY OF ROBERTO BENIGNI

Actor and director. Son of Luigi and Isolina Papini, both farmers, he is the only male after three sisters, Bruna, Albertina and Anna. Very soon his family moved to Vergaio, near Prato, where Roberto grew up. He first studied at the Jesuit seminary in Florence, which he left after the flood of ’66, and then at the Datini Technical Commercial Institute in Prato. The decision to attempt a career as an actor Benigni took it in 1972: at the age of twenty, with only the guitar for luggage, he left for Rome with three friends – Silvano Ambrogi, Carlo Monni and Aldo Buti – with whom he made his debut at the Teatro dei Satiri with the comedy “I Burosauri” by Silvano Ambrogi. Benigni’s first film role was in 1977, in the film that underwent heavy censorship, “Berlinguer ti amo bene” by Giuseppe Bertolucci, who then wrote for him the monologue of ‘Cioni Mario di Gaspare fu Giulia’, a character that Benigni brings to success on the Italian stages. His participation in Renzo Arbore’s television program “L’altra Sunday” dates back to the following year, in which he is an extravagant film critic. In 1979 he is the protagonist of the film “Chiedo asilo” by Marco Ferreri. This is followed by “Il pap’occhio” by Renzo Arbore and “Il minestrone” by Sergio Citti. For his directorial debut we have to wait until 1983, when he directs and interprets “Tu mi turbi”. (During the shooting of this film he meets Nicoletta Braschi who will become his wife on December 26, 1991.) From that moment on Benigni acts more and more often in films written and directed by himself. This does not prevent him, however, from participating in 1986 in America in Jim Jarmusc’s “Daunbailò”, and in an episode of “Night Taxis”. In 1989 Federico Fellini calls him for his latest film “La voce della luna”. In 1993 he plays the role of Inspector Clouseau’s secret son in “The Son of the Pink Panther” by Blake Edwards. In parallel, however, Benigni carries on his activities as director and screenwriter (as well as actor) of films in which his wife Nicoletta Braschi often appears. Thus were born in ’84, alongside Massimo Troisi, “We just have to cry”, in 1988, with Walter Matthau, “The little devil”, (film that marks the beginning of the collaboration of Benigni screenwriter with the writer Vincenzo Cerami ), in ’91 “Johnny Stecchino” and in ’95 “The monster”. All films that obtain a huge success among the Italian public. Benigni comes to international success with “La vita è bella”, which in 1999 earned him the Oscar for best actor, the first non-Anglo-Saxon to win it, an award that he collects from the hands of Sophia Loren walking on the armchairs in the room. Two other statuettes also go to the film, on an unforgettable night for Italian cinema: the one for the best film in a foreign language and the one for the music of Nicola Piovani. In 2002 he brings to the screen the story of the puppet “Pinocchio” by Carlo Collodi and in 2005 “The tiger and the snow” in which he wants to reaffirm the universal value of poetry in opposition to the senselessness of any war. And it is precisely to poetry, in particular to Dante Alighieri, that he dedicates much of his time reciting and commenting on the songs of the “Divine Comedy”, in a “Tutto Dante” tour that starts from Piazza Santa Croce in Florence in the summer of 2006 to shoot many squares and Italian theaters to then land on RaiUno in 14 highly successful evenings. He received the César Lifetime Achievement Award in France in 2008.