The actor and director had been ill for some time
AND’ the actor Francesco Nuti died this morning in Rome. He was 68 years old and had been ill for some time. This was announced by his daughter Ginevra together with the family members who sincerely thank the health personnel and all those who have treated the actor in the long term of the disease, in particular the staff of Villa Verde in Rome. The date and place of the funeral will be announced in the coming hours.
The family, in a statement, asks that the moment of great pain be respected and for this reason they do not intend to make any statements.
Francesco Nuti lived two lives: the first as an actor and film director, interpreter of that type of romantic and bittersweet comedy that had a great hold on the comedians of later generations, becoming box office champion with his lightness in the 80s ; the second, by now a sad victim of the crisis of his own comic cinema, marked by an ordeal of falls, accidents, accidents and illnesses, which since 2006 have made him semi-ill.
Through a marked dialectal cadence and giving life to characters who play on the attempt to regain possession of the dominant role within the couple, Nuti performed brilliant comedies with vaguely surreal tones that had an astonishing success in the 80s thanks to films such as “Io , Clare and the Dark”, “Casablanca, Casablanca”, “All because of heaven”, “Bewitched”, “Caruso Pascoski of a Polish father”, “Willy Gentlemen and I come from afar”, up to “Women with skirts”, successful film that in the 1991/92 season broke all box office records, marking the most successful moment in Nuti’s career who was the screenwriter, director and leading actor of that film alongside the beautiful Carole Bouquet.
The Giancattivi
Born in Prato on May 17, 1955, he made his debut as an amateur actor while still a student, writing his own monologues. He was noticed by Alessandro Benvenuti and Athina Cenci who wanted him in the group The Giancattividirected by Benvenuti, he worked for the first time in the cinema in “AdOvest di Paperino” (1981), a revisitation of the comic repertoire of the Tuscan trio.
Having abandoned the trio, with whom he had ventured into cabaret and had participated in successful television broadcasts, such as, for example, “Non stop” (1977-78) by director Enzo Trapani on Raiuno, he began his solo career taking part, in as screenwriter and protagonist in some films directed by Maurizio Ponzi.
Success in the eighties
Under the direction of the latter, he acted in three films that highlighted his original comedy: “Madonna, what silence is tonight” (1982), in which he replies the character of the film Welcome and which makes him popular also thanks to the song “Puppe a pera”; “Io, Chiara e lo Scuro”, with Giuliana De Sio, for which he earned particular acclaim; and “I’m happy” (1983). There are three films that give him great notoriety: in particular the role of Francesco Piccioli, present in the second film, with which he wins the David di Donatello and the Silver Ribbon for best leading actor.
Nuti director
In the wake of the success achieved, Nuti also made his directorial debut, confirming the bittersweet tones of his comic vein, with “Casablanca Casablanca” (1985), again alongside Giuliana De Sio, who gave him the second David di Donatello; the film, loosely based on the classic “Casablanca” (1942) by Michael Curtiz, continues the story of “Me, Clare and the Dark”, making fun of the quarrels of a couple in crisis.
Always an interpreter of his films, and often the author of the screenplay, Nuti has remained faithful to a delicate comedy, which however at times explodes in neurotic outbursts and through which the man-woman relationship is constantly analysed, in different contexts: from ” Tuta guilt del Paradiso” (1985), with Ornella Nuti, to “Stregati” (1986), from “Caruso Pascoski (of a Polish father)” (1988), with his fiancée Clarissa Burt, left for the actress Isabella Ferrari who he will direct in “Willy Signori and I come from afar” (1989), up to “Women with skirts” (1991).
San Remo
In the meantime he also devoted himself to music. In 1988 she took part in the Sanremo Festival with the song “Sarà per te”, later also recorded by Mina, and, in a duet with Mietta, with the song “Let’s breathe”, composed by the singer-songwriter Biagio Antonacci.
Films less kissed by success followed: “OcchioPinocchio” (1994), an ambitious reinterpretation of the puppet by Carlo Collodi; “Il Signor Quindicipalle” (1998), with an irrepressible Sabrina Ferilli, based on the actor’s passion for billiards – already at the center of “Io, Chiara e lo Scuro” and “Casablanca Casablanca” -, “Io amo Andrea” ( 2000), produced by himself, and “Caruso, zero in conduct” (2001). After a difficult period, he returns to the set with Benvenuti in Claudio Fragasso’s “Concorso di guilt” (2005), his last film interpretation.
Late nineties
The lukewarm acclaim at the box office at the end of the 1990s, incomparable to the successes of the previous decade, caused Nuti to experience deep depression and problems with alcoholism and the 2003 chronicles also mention an attempted suicide.
But fate had one last joke for him: on the eve of his return to the set, on September 3, 2006, he fell down the stairs of his home and hit his head; urgently hospitalized at the Umberto I General Hospital in Rome, due to a serious cranial hematoma, he fell into a coma, from which he came out on November 24, 2006. He was transferred to the Versilia hospital in Lido di Camaiore (Lucca), site of a specialized center in neuromotor rehabilitation and in February 2009 he returned to his home in Prato, assisted by his brother Giovanni, doctor and composer, his collaborator in several films: but he will no longer be independent, with serious difficulties in his limbs and speech difficulties, forced to live on a wheelchair.
In January 2016 Nuti rose to the headlines for a legal case that saw him involved in spite of himself: his 35-year-old Georgian carer was reported for ill-treatment of the actor from Prato who had been immobilized in bed for some time. A year after his dismissal, the Georgian was arrested because he was accused of being part of a gang of compatriots dedicated to shoplifting. In September 2016 Nuti was hospitalized in the CTO’s resuscitation department of the Florentine Careggi hospital for a cerebral hemorrhage. In the following years he was in rehabilitation clinics in Rome. In the summer of 2017, Nuti’s daughter, Ginevra, born from the relationship with the actress Anamaria Malipiero, released an interview stating: “Now that I’m of age, I asked to be my father’s only guardian because I think that no one better than I can take care of him.”
(by Paolo Martini)
Source-www.adnkronos.com