Placido, Michele

(1946-)

   Actor and director. After graduating from the Italian National Academy for Dramatic Art, Placido made his stage debut in Luca Ronconi's landmark production of Orlando Furioso in 1969. While continuing to work in the theater in the early 1970s, he also began appearing in films, one of his first notable roles being that of the young man recruited to the Mafia in the telefilm Il piccioto (The Young Man, 1973). He then appeared as Ugo Tognazzi's handsome young rival in Mario Monicelli's Romanzo popolare (Come Home and Meet My Wife, 1974) before playing the more demanding lead role in Marco Bellocchio's Marcia trionfale (Victory March, 1976), for which he received both a Nastro d'argento and a special David di Donatello. After strong performances in, among others, Carlo Lizzani's Fontamara (1980) and Francesco Rosi's Tre fratelli (Three Brothers, 1981), he became one of the best-recognized and most loved faces in Italy playing the part of Inspector Cattani in the popular and long-running television series on the Mafia, La piovra (Octopus, 1984-1989).

   While providing powerful performances in socially committed films such as Marco Risi's Mery per sempre (Forever Mary, 1983) and Gianni Amelio's Lamerica (1994), he also made his own directorial debut in 1990 with Pummard (Tomato, 1990), one of the first films to focus on the plight of clandestine immigrants in Italy. This was followed by Le amiche del cuore (Close Friends, 1992), which courageously tackled the difficult theme of incest, and Un eroe borghese (Ordinary Hero, 1995), a portrait of financial lawyer Giorgio Ambrosoli, who was killed in 1979 while investigating links between politics and organized crime in the so-called Sindona Affair. The film's expression of a strong sense of civic duty earned Placido a second special David di Donatello. After Del perduto amore (Of Lost Love, 1998) and Un viaggio chiamato amore (A Journey Called Love, 2002), the story of the tortured love affair between poet Dino Campana and writer Sibilla Aleramo, Placido directed what remains his most impressive work to date, Romanzo criminale (Crime Novel, 2005). A long but fast-paced gangster epic detailing the rise and fall of the notorious Magliana Gang in Rome in the 1970s, it won eight David di Donatello and seven Nastri d'argento as well as a nomination for the Berlin Golden Bear.