Farewell to Flavio Bucci, unforgettable interpreter of Antonio Ligabue on the small screen

Actor Flavio Bucci left us today in Fiumicino, Italy. He was 72, and the news was spread on Facebook by the mayor of the city on the Latium coast, Esterino Montino: “a great character actor, one of those who made Italian cinematography great,” Montino wrote, expressing his and the city administration’s (Bucci had resided for years in the hamlet of Passoscuro) condolences to family and friends.

Bucci was born in Turin in 1947 and trained at the Scuola del Teatro Stabile di Torino: his film debut was with Elio Petri’s 1971 masterpiece La classe operaia va in paradiso, a film that won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in 1972. Bucci played a marginal role, but his talent would soon elevate him to starring roles: as early as 1973, again with Elio Petri, the Turin actor played the anti-capitalist bank clerk “Total” in the film La proprietà non è più un furto, which was seized in Italy for obscenity and indecency. Then followed other films such as Aldo Lado’s L’ ultimo treno della notte (1975), which again starred him, and then Eriprando Visconti’s La orca (1975), Giuliano Montaldo’s L’Agnese va a morire (1976), Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977), until his great consecration with Salvatore Nocita’s 1977 TV series Ligabue>, where Bucci played the painter Antonio Ligabue in one of his most famous roles.

And then the films with the other great directors of the 1970s and 1980s, such as Pasquale Festa Campanile, with whom he shot Gegè Bellavita (1978), Marco Tullio Giordano with whom he worked for Maledetti vi amerò (1980), Gabriele Salvatores with Sogno di una notte d’estate (1983) and Mario Monicelli’s films, beginning with Il marchese del Grillo (1981), where he distinguished himself for his portrayal of the bandit Don Bastiano, and continuing with Le due vite di Mattia Pascal. In the 1990s he worked with Alessandro Benvenuti(I miei più cari amici, 1998), with Massimo Ceccherini(Lucignolo in 1999), and from the same period we remember his appearance in the 1993 film Teste rasate (Shaved Heads ). His last major effort was in Paolo Sorrentino’s Il divo in 2008, the film about Andreotti where he played the role of former undersecretary to the presidency of the council Franco Evangelisti, but he has continued to work until recently: his last film is Nour Aya’s La cornice in 2018. He also had many appearances in TV series and TV shows, such as the 1981 miniseries on Don Luigi Sturzo (directed by Giovanni Fago), or 1984’s La piovra (The Octopus ), 1989’s I promessi sposi (The Betrothed), and finally 1997-1998’s La dottoressa Giò (Doctor Giò ). Bucci then also had a brief but significant career as a voice actor: perhaps few remember that he was the voice of John Travolta in the original dubbing of cult hits such as Grease or Saturday Night Fever.

In recent times, an interview he had given to Corriere della Sera in 2018, where he said he had spent all his savings on “women, vodka, and cocaine,” had caused much discussion. An interview that today sounds almost like a statement to draw conclusions about his life: “Forget about moral talk, which I don’t have,” he had told the journalist who interviewed him. “Besides, what is good for you? Working from morning to night to enrich someone? I have not been a good father, I know. But life is a sum of mistakes, joys and pleasures, I don’t regret anything, I have loved, I have laughed, I have lived, does that seem little?”

Farewell to Flavio Bucci, unforgettable interpreter of Antonio Ligabue on the small screen

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.