Description
MICHELE PLACIDO BIOGRAPHY :
Michele Placido (born 19 May 1946) is an Italian actor and director. He is best known for the role of Corrado Cattani in the TV series La piovra.
Life and career
Placido was born at Ascoli Satriano, into a poor family from Rionero in Vulture, Basilicata; he is a descendant of the known brigand Carmine Crocco. Placido had a number of jobs since his youth. He studied acting at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, and with Silvio D’Amico at the Academy of Dramatic Arts. He made his debut as an actor in the play Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1969. Two years later he started film work under directors such as Luigi Comencini, Mario Monicelli, Salvatore Samperi, Damiano Damiani, Pasquale Squitieri, Francesco Rosi, Walerian Borowczyk, Marco Bellocchio, Paolo Cavara and Carlo Lizzani. His first success came with the role of soldier Paolo Passeri in Marcia trionfale (1976, directed by Bellocchio), for which he won a David di Donatello. Two years later he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor award at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival for his role of the homosexual worker in ironical melodrama Ernesto (1978, by Samperi). He appeared in several TV movies in the 1970s, but 1983 marked the beginning of his greatest television popularity when he played the lead as a police inspector investigating the Mafia in Damiano Damiani’s TV series La piovra. He went on to play the same part in the subsequent three series, until his character’s assassination. Afterwards he would appear as a law enforcement official in a number of other films and TV productions dealing with organized crime, including a semi-biographical movie about Giovanni Falcone, where he acted as the titular judge. In 2008, in a reversal of roles, he portrayed longtime Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano in the TV movie L’ultimo padrino. A recognizable role to US audiences is that of an Italian businessman in the 1988 comedy Big Business. Until a divorce in 1994, he was married to actress Simonetta Stefanelli. Their daughter Violante Placido is also an actress. In 2012 he married actress Federica Vincenti (born 8 November 1983) after over 10 years of dating. The couple divorced in December 2017.
Life and career
Placido was born at Ascoli Satriano, into a poor family from Rionero in Vulture, Basilicata; he is a descendant of the known brigand Carmine Crocco. Placido had a number of jobs since his youth. He studied acting at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, and with Silvio D’Amico at the Academy of Dramatic Arts. He made his debut as an actor in the play Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1969. Two years later he started film work under directors such as Luigi Comencini, Mario Monicelli, Salvatore Samperi, Damiano Damiani, Pasquale Squitieri, Francesco Rosi, Walerian Borowczyk, Marco Bellocchio, Paolo Cavara and Carlo Lizzani. His first success came with the role of soldier Paolo Passeri in Marcia trionfale (1976, directed by Bellocchio), for which he won a David di Donatello. Two years later he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor award at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival for his role of the homosexual worker in ironical melodrama Ernesto (1978, by Samperi). He appeared in several TV movies in the 1970s, but 1983 marked the beginning of his greatest television popularity when he played the lead as a police inspector investigating the Mafia in Damiano Damiani’s TV series La piovra. He went on to play the same part in the subsequent three series, until his character’s assassination. Afterwards he would appear as a law enforcement official in a number of other films and TV productions dealing with organized crime, including a semi-biographical movie about Giovanni Falcone, where he acted as the titular judge. In 2008, in a reversal of roles, he portrayed longtime Mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano in the TV movie L’ultimo padrino. A recognizable role to US audiences is that of an Italian businessman in the 1988 comedy Big Business. Until a divorce in 1994, he was married to actress Simonetta Stefanelli. Their daughter Violante Placido is also an actress. In 2012 he married actress Federica Vincenti (born 8 November 1983) after over 10 years of dating. The couple divorced in December 2017.
ORNELLA MUTI BIOGRAPHY :
Ornella Muti (born Francesca Romana Rivelli; 9 March 1955) is an Italian actress. She made her film debut as Francesca Cimarosa in the 1970 film La moglie più bella.
Early life
Muti was born in Rome to a Neapolitan journalist father and Ilse Renate Krause, a Baltic German sculptor from Estonia. Her maternal grandparents emigrated from Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg, Russia) to Estonia.
Career
Muti modeled as a teenager and made her film debut in the 1970 film La moglie più bella (The Most Beautiful Wife). She has primarily worked in Italian films but made her English-speaking film debut as Princess Aura in Flash Gordon in 1980. American movies she appeared in include Love and Money (1982), Casanova (1987), Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1989), A Season of Giants (1990), Oscar (1991), Once Upon a Crime (1992), Somewhere in the City (1998) and To Rome with Love (2012). In 2008, Muti introduced her own line of jewelry and subsequently opened shops in Paris, Milan, Rome, Riga, Moscow and Almaty. In 1999 she insured her breasts for $350,000. In 2015, the Italian court of Pordenone condemned her to 8 months in prison for having canceled a theatrical performance following a health problem, which did not prevent her from participating in a social dinner with Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg in December 2010. She avoided prison by paying the sum of 30,000 euros to the Verdi theater as compensation.
Muti was born in Rome to a Neapolitan journalist father and Ilse Renate Krause, a Baltic German sculptor from Estonia. Her maternal grandparents emigrated from Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg, Russia) to Estonia.
Career
Muti modeled as a teenager and made her film debut in the 1970 film La moglie più bella (The Most Beautiful Wife). She has primarily worked in Italian films but made her English-speaking film debut as Princess Aura in Flash Gordon in 1980. American movies she appeared in include Love and Money (1982), Casanova (1987), Wait Until Spring, Bandini (1989), A Season of Giants (1990), Oscar (1991), Once Upon a Crime (1992), Somewhere in the City (1998) and To Rome with Love (2012). In 2008, Muti introduced her own line of jewelry and subsequently opened shops in Paris, Milan, Rome, Riga, Moscow and Almaty. In 1999 she insured her breasts for $350,000. In 2015, the Italian court of Pordenone condemned her to 8 months in prison for having canceled a theatrical performance following a health problem, which did not prevent her from participating in a social dinner with Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg in December 2010. She avoided prison by paying the sum of 30,000 euros to the Verdi theater as compensation.
