Ingrassia, Ciccio

(1922-2003)

(Ciccio, short for Francesco.) Actor. A vaudeville performer from a very young age, Ingrassia met Franco Franchi while touring in the mid-1950s and together they formed what would soon become one of the most successful comic acts in postwar Italian cinema. After making a name for themselves with their variety shows onstage, the duo appeared in very small roles in Mario Mattoli's Appuntamento a Ischia (Rendezvous at Ischia, 1960). Then, during the next decade and a half, they came to star in over 100 films of varying quality, many of them hastily concocted farces and parodies of other well-known films, such as Il bello il brutto e il cretino (The Handsome, the Ugly and the Stupid, 1967) and Indovina chi viene a merenda? (Guess Who's Coming to Afternoon Tea, 1968).

   Loved by the audiences who flocked to see the films but generally maligned by the critics, the duo were able to give better proof of their abilities in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Che cosa sono le nuvole?, an episode of the compilation film Capriccio italiano (Caprice Italian Style, 1968), and as the Fox and the Cat in Luigi Comencini's adaptation of Pinocchio (1972) for Italian television. Ingrassia also appeared on his own: he played the eccentric uncle who shouts, "I want a woman" from the treetops in Federico Fellini's Amarcord (1973), and won a Nastro d'argento for his supporting role in Elio Petri's political satire Todo modo (1976). In 1991 he was also awarded a David di Donatello for his supporting role in Felice Farina's Condominio (Condominium, 1991). Nevertheless, Ingrassia's most memorable performance probably remains his interpretation of Don Lollo, the antagonist of Zi Dima, played by Franchi, in the La giara episode of Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Kaos (Chaos, 1984). Ingrassia also directed two films: Paolo il freddo (Paolo, the Cold-Blooded, 1974) and L'esorciccio (The Exorcist: Italian Style, 1975).