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Paolo Villaggio

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Paolo Villaggio

Paolo Villaggio (30 December 1932 – 3 July 2017) was an Italian actor, comedian, film director, and writer. He is noted for the characters he created with paradoxical and grotesque characteristics: Professor Kranz, the ultra-timid Giandomenico Fracchia, and the obsequious and meek accountant Ugo Fantozzi, perhaps the favourite character in Italian comedy. He wrote several books, usually of satirical character. He also acted in dramatic roles, and appeared in several movies.

Quotes

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  • When there are two Italians, they confide secrets to each other; three make philosophical observations; four play cards; five play poker; six talk about soccer; seven found a party in which they all secretly aspire to the presidency; eight form a mountain choir.
  • [If you had the extraordinary—and also terrible—power to rule a country for a moment, to do whatever you wanted, what would you give its citizens first?] The question is a somewhat utopian one, and therefore the answer can only be utopian. Something that humanity will hardly achieve, perhaps at the end of its evolution: equality.
  • There were two very beautiful blond children, the children of rich people: all the children of rich people are blond and look alike, while the children of Calabrian farm laborers are dark-skinned and look different from each other.
  • Fantozzi, "Fantozzi sul treno dei ricchi". Quoted in Dizionario delle citazioni, Italo Sordi (editor), BUR, 1992. ISBN 88-17-14603-X.
  • With Fantozzi, I tried to recount the adventure of those who live in that part of life that everyone (except the children of the powerful) goes through or has gone through: the moment when you are under someone else's thumb. Many come out of it with honor, many went through it at twenty, others at thirty, many remain there forever, and they are the majority. Fantozzi is one of them.
  • Fantozzi, "Fantozzi sul treno dei ricchi". Citato in Dizionario delle citazioni, Italo Sordi (editor), BUR, 1992. ISBN 88-17-14603-X, foreword.
  • But it is not a book about [Fantozzi] at all, it is just a collection of Fantozzi stories that I wrote for L'Europeo, with a few extra semicolons, jotted down at random. Writing will never be my job, it's something I do for fun.
  • Fantozzi, "Fantozzi sul treno dei ricchi". Citato in Dizionario delle citazioni, Italo Sordi (editor), BUR, 1992. ISBN 88-17-14603-X, foreword.
  • Did I say that the Pope (John Paul II) doesn't believe in God?[14] I really think so. Come on. The Pope is too intelligent a person to believe in God.
  • From the interview by G. P., Villaggio: Neanche il Papa crede in Dio, la Repubblica, 24 October 1994, p. 27.
  • Fantozzi is also a therapist: he freed Italians from the fear of being Italian.
  • Il Messaggero, 10 January 1994; quoted in Panorama - Edizioni 1447-1450, Mondadori, 1994, p. 2.
  • TV is more dangerous because it is transparent: it magnifies flaws.
  • il Giornale, 16 July 1994; quoted in Panorama - Edizioni 1472-1476, Mondadori, 1994, p. 178.
  • (About Silvio Berlusconi) He told me I'm a great comedian. I'm very grateful to him for that and for losing the last election.
  • From an interview by Maria Pia Fusco, La comicità? È nel DNA, la Repubblica, 15 maggio 1995, p. 27.
  • I realize that for the general public, Reder had become Filini, but we must remember that his career went far beyond Filini. He was an extraordinary actor, invaluable to many great directors.
  • I don't like Eduardo. I'm with Peppino. And even if Eduardo remains one of the few Italian authors, along with Pirandello, Goldoni, and Fo, to be performed abroad, who knows what the future holds. Perhaps posterity will appreciate Pappagone's extraordinary tirades more than Eduardo's serious, boring, and pretentious ones. A virtue for our Catholic and falsely committed country.
  • Peppino was not born just to make people laugh. Those in the extra category like him can do anything. It is no coincidence that he played Molière, Machiavelli, and Pinter. Eduardo, on the other hand, only played himself.
  • (About Vittorio Gassman) Totò and Sordi were the funniest, Mastroianni the most charming, but Vittorio was the most complete: a great man of theater, cinema, and literature. He was a prince, far removed from the charlatanism of our milieu. His presence was enjoyable for his culture, his entertainment, and the honesty with which he approached every subject.
  • Un fuoriserie Villaggio: «Mito del Novecento», La Stampa, 30 June 2000.
  • At the beginning of spring, we used to go to Sampierdarena, a suburb of Genoa that is still one of the most atrocious things I have ever seen, of a terrible, repugnant atrocity. I acted as a guide and we were all equipped with fake tourist guides. [He stands up and begins to tell the story, using gestures to help him.] We started out like tourists. ‘What you see here [raising his voice] is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful places in the world!’ [laughs] When a few people had gathered, intrigued to say the least, we began to say, 'How wonderful! How beautiful! Come, come here, look how well you can see' [laughs]. And then Fabrizio or someone else in our group would say, 'Look, apparently, it looks like shit [laughs]. But this is one of the most repulsive places on the face of the earth!
  • From an interview released in Rome on 17 February 1993; quoted in Luigi Viva, Non per un dio ma nemmeno per gioco, Feltrinelli, Milano, 2004, p. 75. ISBN 88-07-81580-X.


  • I am enraged by this tendency, which exists above all in Italy, perhaps because of its Catholic roots, to recognize the merits of artists only after their death. As if death ennobled them.
  • Dizionario degli attori: Gli attori del nostro tempo, Gabriele Rifilato (editor), Rai-Eri, Roma, 2005. ISBN 8839712895.
  • One day we were at the Ritz in Madrid, in a suite. Moana went to the bathroom and came back wearing only her underwear. She looked at me and said, ‘I will never make love to you. I love you very much. I am HIV positive.’ It was a sentence that struck me deeply. I hugged her and she was moved. [...] The most curious thing about Moana Pozzi was that she hated sex. [...] She was completely frigid. It's quite sad: she did a job that she actually hated. Her frigidity led her to do this job with a certain anger, she did it with little joy. Honestly, she didn't understand what was the right path to happiness. For her, born in a poor neighborhood, it was about making money any way she could, even at the risk of unhappiness.
  • Fantozzi at that time was a happy wretch; at least he had a steady job.
  • DNews, 18 June 2012, p. 2.
  • Young people have a habit right now of saying that you are unhappy, that you are afraid of the future, that this or that is to blame... and you blame our generation above all, the thieves, the politicians... no, that's not true, you are also to blame, believe me. My generation! When the war ended, the country was completely destroyed, there were no roads, no highways, no bridges, no hospitals, there was nothing, there were only churches. After a horrific tragedy like the war, there was nothing left, nothing, nothing! In fifteen years, we in Italy became the fourth most industrialized country on Earth. In just fifteen years! Oooh! So I beg you, guys, it's your fault. This constant complaining! I'm starting to think that we're happier as old people than you are as young people. Think about it, it's incredible!
  • From the TV programma Wikitaly, Rai 2, 11 October 2012.
  • Comic behavior is childish behavior, which means that all comedians are children, immature. Stan Laurel is a child, he cries all the time [...], Jerry Lewis was a silly child, Totò never really touched a woman, Sordi the same. [...] Childish behavior, I would say, brings to light, in a sudden, unexpected way, the happiest period of life: childhood, which provokes a great emotion of happiness and therefore laughter. All great comedians have always moved and behaved immaturely, like children.
  • From the TV programme La storia siamo noi, Rai 2, 18 December 2012.
  • (About Cécile Kyenge) He's not very charming. Absolutely not. Also because he speaks Italian... and he doesn't even have an Italian passport. [...] [The appointment to the Ministry of Integration is] Superfluous. It was very theatrical. [...] [Appointing a black minister] It's superfluous; all in all, it doesn't solve the problem [of integration].
  • La Zanzara, Radio 24, 27 May 2013.
  • Our culture has not yet accepted an inferior culture such as that which comes from Africa. It is not skin color, it is cultural difference. Undoubtedly, it cannot be compared to the great European culture. [...] We do-gooders, we Europeans, we priests, we saints... we have all always pretended to be better than we really are. [...] Relations with black people today, except perhaps with Obama, are still marked by a slight hypocrisy.
  • Fantozzi is the prototype of the poor wretch, the quintessence of nothingness.
  • I spent my childhood and youth with Fabrizio De André, then twenty years with Gassman, another twenty with Tognazzi, then Ferreri, Volonté, Fellini... In short... I only talk ‘about’ someone, not ‘with’ someone... oh well!
  • [After winning the 1990-1991 championship] I don't believe in God, but now I believe in Sampdoria.
  • (About Roberto Benigni He is always over the top, a euphoric clown. Only when he talks about money with his wife does he become very serious. His voice and face change. The farmer in him comes out. Benigni is a great man, even if he leaves nothing written.
  • From an interview by Giancarlo Dotto per Diva e Donna; reported by Dagospia.com.

Fantozzi d'Italia

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From an interview by Dante Matelli, L'Espresso, 1 October 1998
  • Fantozzi no longer dresses like he did in the 1960s; baggy pants and boxer shorts, an incredible wife, an unimaginable daughter. Fantozzi had a different vibe back then. The name itself, Fantozzi, sounded like “fantocci” (puppets). All of that is gone now.
  • The audience that goes to see Vasco Rossi is made up of young Fantozzis: frayed sweaters, military boots, the same Martini sports glasses, the same imitation watches.
  • Benigni appeals to Fantozzis precisely because he is easy to understand, very comforting, a bit Chaplinesque.
  • At my age, you're afraid of discoveries. A discovery would force you to change your frame of reference.
  • (About Achille Campanile) He was my idol. But he was just surreal. He couldn't do social satire because the regime wouldn't let him. So he came up with ingenious solutions.

Quotes about

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  • Benigni and Villaggio are two overlooked and neglected treasures. Two actors who bring health and vitality to cinema... Ignoring their potential seems to me to be one of the many faults that can be attributed to our producers.
  • Carlo Martello ritorna dalla battaglia di Poiters (Carlo Martello Returns from the Battle of Poiters) came about in a curious way. In one room, Mauro De André, Fabrizio's older brother, was preparing for his civil procedure exam, while in the next room, Paolo Villaggio and Fabrizio were helping each other with their private law exam. After a month, Mauro passed the exam with flying colors, a milestone in a journey that led him to become a distinguished lawyer. Fabrizio and Villaggio, on the other hand, composed a pleasant and playful song about Carlo Martello and another entitled Il fannullone (The Slacker). They did not take the exam and never graduated.
  • He was the greatest clown of his generation, as rare as the great poets. A ruthless, revolutionary, and liberating child. Fantozzi represents us all, humiliates us and corrects us. With him, all anonymous people have found their Lord. Paolo created the first true national mask, something that will last forever.
  • I met him for the first time in Pocol, above Cortina. I was an angry kid who swore a lot. he liked me because I was tormented and restless, and he was the same, only he was more controlled, perhaps because he was older than me, so he immediately took on the role of older brother and said to me: “Look, you mustn't swear, you swear to be the center of attention, you're an asshole.”

The only true new epic writer we have in Italy is Paolo Villaggio. Because he is the only one who has been able to describe the One against the World today. Fantozzi like Aeneas, like El Cid, like Siegfried, like Ulysses.

  • There haven't been many people as free as you in a country where satire is only directed at those who pose no threat. For this reason too, dear Paolo, Italy without you is a little sadder from today.
  • He wasn't a very likeable character, Paolo... he was cynical... just like some of his characters. (Orchidea De Santis)

Pasolini praised, at the time, controversially admired, the new language invented by Paolo Villaggio in the books of the Fantozzi series. Paolo Villaggio must absolutely be rehabilitated from a literary point of view, because his writing, as Pasolini rightly saw, would have changed the common Italian language to an unimagined depth, starting with the abuse of the adjective ‘pazzesco’ (crazy). *Giuseppe Genna, in Italia del profundis, p. 276.

A man clearly determined to ruin himself with his own hands (and since he is good at it, you will see that he will succeed by participating in all the television nonsense possible).

  • Beniamino Placido, quoted in Roberto D'Agostino, Chi è, chi non è, chi si crede di essere, Arnoldo Mondadori, 1988.
  • Paolo was the first teacher, cinematographically speaking, not only the teacher in the film Marco Tullio Sperelli, but a teacher of cinematic experience. We were all 14 children there. [...] Paolo was everything except the Fantozzi we expected him to be. [He was] a very serious person, very dutiful, very precise, not very clumsy... serious. Getting to know him in person and realizing that he was a totally different man from his character [...] was strange, especially through the eyes of an 8-year-old child.
  • Ciro Esposito, from the interview to Fanpage.it, 4 July 2017. Video available on Youtube.com (from min. 0:34).

Milena Vukotic

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  • I had seen Villaggio on television: he had an explosive personality. His intelligence was a constant source of enrichment for me. He created the character of Fantozzi, around whom he built a galaxy of extraordinary faces. Including mine. I played my part with the awareness that I was acting in a cartoon.
  • He was caustic, cynical, bizarre, and unpredictable. His irony was fierce, but in my opinion it hid a mysterious side of him that he didn't want to reveal. His fragility, his deep melancholy, which he didn't want to show. And that was his charm. He dressed in skirts, he was crazy, but that's how he was. His eccentricity wasn't ostentatious, he was just naturally eccentric.
  • Paolo felt more like a writer than an actor. And it's a shame that only Federico Fellini and Lina Wertmüller recognized his talent. Paolo shouldn't have been reduced and relegated to the Fantozzi character that he himself had invented and that brought him success.
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