Ray Bolger

By the time of his death he was the last surviving member of the main Oz cast. Benigni is currently directing a new film called "La tigre et la neve", shooting in Rome, Tunisia, and Umbria. Bolger died in Los Angeles, California, in 1987 of cancer just five days after his eighty-third birthday and was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Benigni was censored again in the 1980s for calling the Pope John Paul II something impolite during an important live TV show. His famously mangled English is a put-on, apparently. Mr. It was an unprecedented fact, given that until that moment Italian politicians were proverbially serious and formal (and Berlinguer was perhaps the most serious one at all); it represented a breaking point, after which politicians experimented newer habits and "public manners", started frequenting less formal happenings and, generally speaking, modified their lifestyle in order to show a more popular, "familiar" look. In 1985 he and Liza Minnelli, the daughter of his Oz co-star Judy Garland, starred in That's Dancing! -- a film also written Jack Haley, Jr., the son of Tin Man actor Jack Haley. Little after, he appeared during a public political demonstration of the Italian Communist Party (of which he was a sympathiser), and in this occasion he took in his arms and dandled the national leader Enrico Berlinguer, a very serious figure.

He also made frequent guest appearances on television. A great scandal for the time, the series was suspended due to censorship. He starred in several more films and had a sitcom called Where's Raymond? 1953. Very popular in Italy, Benigni became famous in the 1970s for a shocking TV series called Televacca, by Renzo Arbore, in which he interpreted a particular hymn on specific biological functions. Following Oz, Bolger moved to RKO. Benigni is also a well appreciated improvisatory poet (poesia estemporanea is a form of art popularly followed and practiced in Tuscany), and is appreciated for his recitations of Dante's Divina Commedia by memory. Bolger's sympathy for Dorothy's plight, his cleverness and bravery in her rescue from the Wicked Witch of the West and his deep affection for her shone through, endearing the character -- and Bolger -- in the public mind forever. He also starred in the first of Jarmusch's series of short films Coffee and Cigarettes (1986).

He displayed the full range of his physical, comedic, and dramatic talents playing the character searching for the brain that he's always had. In Down By Law (1986) he plays Bob, the innocent abroad, convicted for murder, whose irrepressible good humour and optimism help him escape and find love (also starring Braschi as his beloved.) In Night on Earth (1991) he plays a cabby in Rome, causing his passenger, a priest, great discomfort by confessing his revolting sexual experiences. Bolger's performance in Oz was a tour de force. Benigni has starred in two films by American Director Jim Jarmusch. (The powdered aluminum had been inhaled and coated Ebsen's lungs, leaving him near death.) Ebsen's illness paved the way for the role to be filled by Jack Haley. Benigni's wife, Nicoletta Braschi, has starred with him in most of the films he directed. While Bolger was pleased with his role as the Scarecrow, Ebsen was struck ill by the powdered aluminum make-up used to complete the Tin Man costume. With the very popular comic actor Massimo Troisi, he played in Non ci resta che piangere (nothing left for us, but crying), a fable in which the protagonists are suddenly thrown back in time up to 15th century, just a little before 1492, so they start looking for Columbus in order to stop him before discovering the Americas, but obviously they are not able to reach him.

In time the roles were switched. Benigni also directed The Monster (Il Mostro), Il piccolo diavolo (with Walter Matthau) and Johnny Stecchino. The part had already been assigned to another lean and limber dancing studio contract player, Buddy Ebsen. Benigni's father had spent two years in a concentration camp in Bergen-Belsen, and La Vita è bella is based in part on his father's experiences; the film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor (Benigni directed himself). Bolger's studio contract stipulated that he would play any part the studio chose; however, he was unhappy when he was cast as Tin Woodsman in Oz. Benigni is probably best known for his tragicomedy Life Is Beautiful (La Vita è bella), filmed in Cortona, about a man who tries to protect his son during his internment at a Nazi concentration camp, by telling him that the Holocaust is an elaborate game and he must adhere very carefully to the rules to win. His best-known film prior to The Wizard of Oz was The Great Ziegfeld (1936). He was born in Misericordia, Tuscany, Italy.

His film career began when he signed a $3,000 a week contract with MGM in 1936. Roberto Benigni (born October 27, 1952) is an Italian film and television actor and director. His limber body and ability to ad lib movement won him many starring roles on Broadway in the 1930s. He began his career as a dancer. He was inspired by the vaudeville shows he attended when he was young to become an entertainer himself.

His father was a house-painter, his mother a homemaker. Ray Bolger was born and grew up in Dorchester, Massachusetts, a middle-class neighborhood. Ray Bolger (January 10, 1904 - January 15, 1987) was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow in the 1939 MGM film The Wizard of Oz.