Nino Manfredi
| Nino Manfredi | |
|---|---|
Manfredi in Nell'anno del Signore (1969)
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| Born |
Saturnino Manfredi 22 March 1921 Castro dei Volsci, Province of Frosinone, Lazio, Italy |
| Died | 4 June 2004 (aged 83) Rome, Italy |
| Cause of death | Aftermath of stroke |
| Years active | 1949–2003 |
Saturnino "Nino" Manfredi (Italian: [ˈniːno maɱˈfreːdi]; 22 March 1921 – 4 June 2004) was one of the most prominent Italian actors in the commedia all'italiana genre. He was also a film and stage director, a screenwriter, a playwright, a comedian, a singer, an author, a radio and television presenter and a voice actor. During his career he won several awards, including six David di Donatello awards, six Nastro d'Argento awards and the Prix de la première oeuvre (Best First Work Award) at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival for Between Miracles. Typically playing losers, marginalised, working-class characters yet "in possession of their dignity, morality, and underlying optimism", he was referred to as "one of the few truly complete actors in Italian cinema".
Manfredi was born in Castro dei Volsci, Frosinone into a humble family of farmers. His father recruited in Public Safety, where he reached the rank of Maresciallo, and in the early 1930s he was transferred to Rome, where Nino and his younger brother Dante spent their childhood in the popular neighborhood of San Giovanni. In 1937 he became seriously ill with bilateral pleurisy, and after a doctor gave him only three months to live, he remained several years hospitalized in a sanatorium; there he learned to play a banjo built by himself and he entered the musical band of the hospital. To please his family in October 1941 he enrolled at the university in the Faculty of Law, but already in the same year he showed an interest and a natural inclination for the stage, making his debut as a presenter and an actor in the theater of a parish in Rome.
After 8 September 1943, in order to avoid conscription, he took refuge for a year with his brother in the mountains above Cassino; returned to Rome in 1944 he resumed his university studies and, at the same time, he enrolled at the National Academy of Dramatic Art. In October 1945 he graduated in law with a thesis in criminal law, without ever practicing the profession, and in June 1947 he graduated from the Academy.
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