Alberto Sordi, also known as Albertone, (June 15, 1920, Rome - February 25, 2003, Rome) was a beloved Italian actor and a film director. He was also the voice of Oliver Hardy in the Italian version of the Laurel & Hardy films. Not only an actor and director, Sordi can also be considered a key figure to understand Italian culture and history. June 15 is the 166th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (167th in leap years), with 199 days remaining. ... Year 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... Nickname: The Eternal City Motto: SPQR: Senatus PopulusQue Romanus Location of the city of Rome (yellow) within the Province of Rome (red) and region of Lazio (grey) Coordinates: Region Lazio Province Province of Rome Founded 21 April 753 BC  - Mayor Walter Veltroni Area    - City 1285 km²  (580 sq mi)  - Urban... February 25 is the 56th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Nickname: The Eternal City Motto: SPQR: Senatus PopulusQue Romanus Location of the city of Rome (yellow) within the Province of Rome (red) and region of Lazio (grey) Coordinates: Region Lazio Province Province of Rome Founded 21 April 753 BC  - Mayor Walter Veltroni Area    - City 1285 km²  (580 sq mi)  - Urban... June 15 is the 166th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (167th in leap years), with 199 days remaining. ... Year 1920 (MCMXX) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... Nickname: The Eternal City Motto: SPQR: Senatus PopulusQue Romanus Location of the city of Rome (yellow) within the Province of Rome (red) and region of Lazio (grey) Coordinates: Region Lazio Province Province of Rome Founded 21 April 753 BC  - Mayor Walter Veltroni Area    - City 1285 km²  (580 sq mi)  - Urban... February 25 is the 56th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Nickname: The Eternal City Motto: SPQR: Senatus PopulusQue Romanus Location of the city of Rome (yellow) within the Province of Rome (red) and region of Lazio (grey) Coordinates: Region Lazio Province Province of Rome Founded 21 April 753 BC  - Mayor Walter Veltroni Area    - City 1285 km²  (580 sq mi)  - Urban... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Laurel and Hardy Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were the members of the most famous comedy duo in film history. ...

Early life

Born in Rome to a schoolteacher and a musician, Sordi enrolled in Milan's dramatic arts academy but was kicked out because of his thick Roman accent. Ironically, it was his accent that would later prove to be his trademark.

Career

In a career that spanned seven decades, Sordi established himself as an icon of Italian cinema with his representative skill at both comedy and drama. His movie career began in the late working as a dubber for the Italian versions of Laurel and Hardy shorts, voicing Oliver Hardy. Early roles included Fellini’s The White Sheik in 1952, Fellini's I Vitelloni (1953), a movie about young slackers, in which he plays a weak, effeminate immature loafer and a starring role in Lo Scapolo (The Bachelor) playing a single man trying to find love. In 1959 he appeared in Monicelli's The Great War, considered by many critics and film historians to be one of the best Italian comedies. The Hollywood Foreign Press recognized his abilities when he was awarded a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actor in a Musical or Comedy for Il Diavolo (1963). Sordi acted alongside Britain’s David Niven in the World War II comedy The Best of Enemies and in 1965 he was in another highly regarded comedy, I Complessi (Complexes). Sordi also succeeded in dramatic roles, most notablely in 1977's Un Borghese Piccolo Piccolo (An Average Little Man) in which he portrays a man whose son is killed in an armed robbery and sets out to exact revenge. In 1984, he directed and coscripted Tutti Dentro (Everybody Inside), in which he played a magistrate who has warrants for corruption served on ministers and businessmen. Alberto Sordi was really masterful in two broad roles: one being the one of the underdog, tribulating against injustices and prevarications, the other that of the prevaricator himself. One has only to watch his performances as the returning emigrant unjustly convicted in Detenuto in attesa di giudizio or the miserly sub-proletarian teased by the old millionaire Bette Davis into endless card games where he hopes to find release from his poverty to appreciate his skills in the first role, while the rampant, unscrupolous doctor he plays in Il medico della mutua is the perfect example of his aptness at rendering characters who were both truly despicable and completely believable. Laurel and Hardy, in a promotional still from their 1937 feature film Way Out West. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The White Sheik is a 1952 film by Federico Fellini, and his first film that he solely directed. ... I Vitelloni is a 1953 film directed by Federico Fellini. ... David Niven (March 1, 1910 – July 29, 1983) was an Academy Award-winning British actor. ... Combatants Allied Powers: United Kingdom France Soviet Union United States Republic of China and others Axis Powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Winston Churchill Charles de Gaulle Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Chiang Kai-Shek Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tojo Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33... Bette Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989), born Ruth Elizabeth Davis, was a two-time Academy Award-winning American actress of film, television and theater. ...

A little more should be said about Sordi's brilliant performance in the comedy released in the US about 1965 under the title "To Bed Or Not Too Bed". He is an apparently ordinary Italian fur merchant who, leaving his faithful, but somewhat dowdy, wife and kids, goes to Stockholm to buy furs. The long rail trip stretches on until the train gets on the car ferry between Denmark and Sweden. A long-legged blonde Scandinavian beauty falls asleep with her booted legs stretched between his in the compartment. This is a preview of the exotic, erotic adventure he is to have. His fur buying done, he comes into social contact with the Swedes. He commits various comical gaffes due to the difference in cultures, like apologizing to the husband with whose wife he has had a bit of adventure. The last scene in Sweden has him engaging in a decadent game with the Swedes in which old used cars are driven out onto a frozen lake and smashed into each other. He returns to wife and family, delighted to see him back and never imagining his adventures.

Selected filmography

• Lo Sceicco Bianco (1951) (The White Sheikh)[1]
• I Vitelloni (1953) (Vitelloni)
• Il seduttore (1954) (The Seductor)
• Un americano a Roma (1954) (An american in Rome)
• Mi permette babbo (1956) (I Should Daddy)
• Il conte Max (1957) (The Count Max)
• La grande Guerra (1959) (The Great War)
• Tutti a casa (1960) (All at home)
• Il vigile (1960) (The Traffic Policeman)
• Gastone (1960) (Gaston)
• Una vita difficile (1961) (A Hard Life)
• Mafioso (1962) (Mafious)
• I due nemici (1962) (The Two Enemies)
• Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) - Count Emilio Ponticelli
• An Italian in America (1967)
• Il medico della mutua (1968) (The Physician of Health Service)
• Detenuto in attesa di giudizio (1971) (Convicted in waiting for judgement)
• Lo scopone scientifico (1972) (Scopone Scientifico)
• Un borghese piccolo piccolo (1971) (A very little middle-class man)
• Il Marchese del Grillo (1981) (Marquis Del Grillo)

The White Sheik (1952) (Italian:Lo Sceicco Bianco) is a semi-autobiographical film by Federico Fellini. ... I Vitelloni is a 1953 film directed by Federico Fellini. ... The 1965 comedy film Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes is set in 1910, at the dawn of aviation when Lord Rawnsley, an English Press magnate, puts up the prize money for an air race from...

Awards

Sordi won five David di Donatello, Italy's most prestigious film award, and four awards for his works from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists. He also received a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival in 1995, and The Golden Globe Award for his performance as an Italian labourer stranded in Sweden in To Bed or Not to Bed. In 1999, the city of Rome made him honorary mayor for a day to celebrate his eightieth birthday. David di Donatello is a prestigious movie award assigned each year for cinematic performances and production by Ente David di Donatello, part of Accademia del Cinema Italiano. ... The Golden Lion (it: Leone dOro) is the name of the highest prize given to a film at the Biennale Venice Film Festival. ... The Venice Film Festival (it: Mostra Internazionale dArte Cinematografica) is the oldest Film Festival in the World (began in the 1932) and takes place every year in late August/early September on the Lido di Venezia in the historic Palazzo del Cinema on the Lungomare Marconi, in Venice, Italy. ... The Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Awards are American awards for motion pictures and television programs, given out each year during a formal dinner. ... Nickname: The Eternal City Motto: SPQR: Senatus PopulusQue Romanus Location of the city of Rome (yellow) within the Province of Rome (red) and region of Lazio (grey) Coordinates: Region Lazio Province Province of Rome Founded 21 April 753 BC  - Mayor Walter Veltroni Area    - City 1285 km²  (580 sq mi)  - Urban...

Death

Sordi died shortly before his eighty-third birthday following a heart attack, he was the last survivor of the golden era of Italian cinema. A myocardial infarction occurs when an atherosclerotic plaque slowly builds up in the inner lining of a coronary artery and then suddenly ruptures, totally occluding the artery and preventing blood flow downstream. ...

A crowd of 250,000 people gathered to pay their last respects at his funeral. They cheered and clapped as Sordi's coffin arrived for the funeral at the Basilica of San Giovanni Laterano in Rome. The crowd watched the funeral service on big screens erected outside the cathedral. Millions more followed the ceremony as it was broadcast live on state television.

"When a loved one dies, a mass of memories and emotions crowd the minds of those who stay behind," said Cardinal Camillo Ruini in his funeral oration. "Since Alberto Sordi has died, this has happened to an entire city, an entire country." The crowd outside clapped and nodded as he spoke. Overhead, a small plane crossed over the basilica trailing a banner that read: "This time you've made us cry." Camillo Cardinal Ruini. ...

Chants of "Alberto" echoed around the square as policemen acting as pallbearers carried Sordi's coffin out after the service.

Tens of thousands of fans had queued to file silently past Sordi's open coffin ahead of the funeral as he lay in state in Rome's town hall, the Campidoglio, an honor only due before to Roman Emperors. The actor's death unleashed a wave of emotion not seen in Italy for years.

External links

• IMDb.com entry on Alberto Sordi