Francesco Salvi (born 7 February 1953) is an Italian actor, writer, comedian, singer and architect.
Born in the northern town of Luino, near the Italian border with Switzerland, Salvi started his career in the mid-1980s. His performances over the years have included but are not limited to: cabaret, cinema, animated cinema, music, writing, theatre and television, with varying degrees of success.
During 1985-1987, Francesco Salvi was one of the main characters of the satirical TV variety show Drive In.
From 1988 to 1989, Salvi hosted his own television program, MegaSalviShow;. The title song of the show, C'è da spostare una macchina (Gotta Move a Car), of which Salvi was author and singer, gained a great commercial success, topping the Italian hit parade. In 1989 he also made his directorial debut with the film Vogliamoci troppo bene (Let's love too much) and took part in the Sanremo Music Festival with the song Esatto (Correct), which obtained critical and commercial success. He later took part to three more editions of the Festival between 1990 and 1996.
In 1991, he took part to the musical L'Odissea, a satirical music show inspired from Homer's Odyssey, aired by Canale 5 and directed by Beppe Recchia. Salvi interpreted Telemachus and Polyphemus, while Andrea Roncato played Ulysses and pornographic actress Moana Pozzi played Penelope. The same year Salvi starred in another satirical musical show, inspired by Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers: I Tre Moschettieri, in which he played Athos.
On 1 March 1992, Francesco Salvi appeared in comics in the comic magazine Topolino, issue 1982, in the comic strip Pippo e e l'ospite d'onore ("Goofy and the guest star"), which Salvi co-authored. In the same year, he hosted the Italia 1 television show La strana coppia ("The Odd Couple"), together with fellow Italian comedian Massimo Boldi.