Roberto Benigni Biography, Family, Career, Movies, Wife, Facebook and Video

Roberto Benigni Biography

Roberto Benigni is an Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter and director. He is known for the 1997 film Life Is Beautiful which he co-wrote, directed and acted in. The film garnered him the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. 

He has also collaborated with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch in three of his films: Down by Law (1986), Night on Earth (1991) and Coffee and Cigarettes (2003).

Roberto Benigni Photo

Roberto Benigni Family

The actor was born Roberto Remigio Benigni on 27th October 1952 in Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy. He is the son of Isolina Papini, a fabric maker, and Luigi Benigni, a bricklayer, carpenter, and farmer. Benigni was raised Catholic and served as an altar boy; he still considers himself a believer.

He has three elder siblings, all sisters; Bruna Benigni (textile worker), born 1945, Albertina Benigni (flower shop owner), born 1947 and Anna Benigni (teacher’s aide), born 1948.

Roberto Benigni Career

His first experiences as a theatre actor took place in 1971, in Prato. During that autumn he moved to Rome where he took part in some experimental theatre shows, some of which he also directed. He then had Benigni had his first theatrical success with Cioni Mario di Gaspare fu Giulia, written by Giuseppe Bertolucci in 1975.

became famous in Italy in the 1970s for a television series called Onda Libera, on RAI2, produced by Renzo Arbore, in which he interpreted the satirical piece The Hymn of the Body Purged (L’inno del corpo sciolto, a scatological song about the joys of defecation). The series was suspended due to censorship. His first film was 1977’s Berlinguer, I Love You (Berlinguer ti voglio bene), also by Bertolucci.

His popularity increased with L’altra domenica (1976/9), another TV show of Arbore’s in which Benigni portrayed a lazy film critic who never watches the films he’s asked to review. Bernardo Bertolucci then cast him in a small speechless role as a window upholsterer in the film La Luna which had limited American distribution due to its subject matter.

In 1990, he was a member of the Jury at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival. He has appeared in many films as well as directing several others over the years.

TuttoDante

Benigni is an improvisatory poet (poesia estemporanea is a form of art popularly followed and practiced in Tuscany), appreciated for his explanation and recitations of Dante’s Divina Commedia from memory.

During 2006 and 2007, Benigni had a lot of success touring Italy with his 90-minute “one man show” TuttoDante (“Everything About Dante”). Combining current events and memories of his past narrated with an ironic tone, Benigni then begins a journey of poetry and passion through the world of the Divine Comedy.

TuttoDante has been performed in numerous Italian piazzas, arenas, and stadiums for a total of 130 shows, with an estimated audience of about one million spectators. Over 10 million more spectators watched the TV show, Il V canto dell’Inferno (“The 5th Song of Hell”), broadcast by Rai Uno on 29 November 2007, with re-runs on Rai International.

Benigni began North American presentations of TuttoDante with an announcement that he learned English to bring the gift of Dante’s work to English speakers. The English performance incorporates dialectic discussion of language and verse and is a celebration of modernity and the concept of human consciousness as created by language.

Benigni brought “TuttoDante” to the United States, Canada and Argentina in the TuttoDante Tour between 2008-2009 with performances in San Francisco, Boston and Chicago. Benigni was feted in San Francisco at a special reception held by the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) in his honor on May 24, 2009. Following his U.S. premiere Benigni performed his last presentation on 16 June 2009, in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he was awarded Honorary Citizenship of the City of Buenos Aires in a ceremony held at the Legislative Palace in homage to the notable Italian diaspora and culture in Argentina.

Roberto Benigni Movies

Filmography (director)

• 1983 You Upset Me (Tu mi turbi)
• 1984 L’addio a Enrico Berlinguer
• 1985 Nothing Left To Do But Cry (Non ci resta che piangere)
• 1988 The Little Devil (Il piccolo diavolo)
• 1991 Johnny Toothpick (Johnny Stecchino)
• 1994 The Monster (Il mostro)
• 1997 Life Is Beautiful (La vita è bella)
• 2002 Pinocchio
• 2005 The Tiger and the Snow (La tigre e la neve)

Actor

• 1976 Onda Libera
• 1977 Berlinguer Ti Voglio Bene
• 1979 I giorni cantati
• 1979 Womanlight
• 1979 Seeking Asylum
• 1979 La Luna
• 1979 Tigers in Lipstick
• 1980 In the Pope’s Eye
• 1981 Il Minestrone
• 1983 Effetti personali
• 1983 Tu mi turbi
• 1983 Tutto Benigni
• 1983 “FF.SS.” – Cioè: “…che mi hai portato a fare sopra a Posillipo se non mi vuoi più bene?”
• 1984 Non ci resta che piangere
• 1984 Cinématon
• 1986 Down by Law
• 1988 The Little Devil
• 1990 La voce della luna
• 1991 Night on Earth
• 1991 Johnny Stecchino
• 1993 Son of the Pink Panther
• 1994 The Monster
• 1997 Life Is Beautiful
• 1999 Asterix and Obelix vs Caesar
• 2002 Roberto Benigni – Chaos With Method
• 2002 Pinocchio
• 2003 Coffee and Cigarettes
• 2005 The Tiger and the Snow
• 2010 La commedia di Amos Poe
• 2012 To Rome with Love

Roberto Benigni Honorary degrees

In addition to numerous film awards, Benigni has garnered honorary degrees from universities worldwide:

1. 1999 – Honorary Doctorate in Philosophy from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba, Israel.
2. 2002 – Honorary Doctorate in Letters from the University of Bologna, Italy.
3. 2003 – Honorary Degree in Psychology from the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy.
4. 2007 – Honorary Doctorate in Letters from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven , Belgium .
5. 2007 – Honorary Degree in Modern Philology from the University of Florence, Italy.
6. 2008 – Honorary Doctorate in Letters from the University of Malta.
7. 2008 – Honorary Degree in Communication Arts from the Touro University Rome, Zagarolo, Italy.
8. 2012 – Honorary Degree in Modern Philology from the University of Calabria, Italy.
9. 2012 – Honorary Doctorate in Letters from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
10. 2015 – Honorary Doctorate in Laws from the University of Toronto, Canada.

Roberto Benigni Honors

In 1999, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him.

Roberto Benigni Wife – Nicoletta Braschi

In 1980 he met Cesenate actress Nicoletta Braschi, who was to become his wife and who has starred in most of the films he has directed. The two got married in 1991.

Actor and director Roberto Benigni and wife Nicoletta Braschi

Roberto Benigni Oscar

Roberto Benigni Facebook

Roberto Benigni – Video