Roberto Benigni

Benigni is currently directing a new film called "La tigre et la neve", shooting in Rome, Tunisia, and Umbria. He is currently working on a sequel to Spaceballs. 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. Married to actress Anne Bancroft, and the father of Max, he owns homes on both coasts. 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. Brooks is one of a select group who have received an Oscar, Emmy (as both an actor and writer), Tony and Grammy. 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. Knowing that anyone seeing the poster with 'Mel Brooks presents The Elephant Man' would go along expecting a comedy he set up the company Brooksfilm to produce the film. Brooksfilm has since produced a number of non-comedy films.

A great scandal for the time, the series was suspended due to censorship. In 1980 Brooks became interested in producing the film "The Elephant Man" directed by David Lynch. 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. His most recent success has been a transfer of his film, The Producers, to the Broadway stage. 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. Brooks developed a repertory company of sorts for his film work: performers with three or more Brooks films to their credit include Wilder, Dom DeLuise, Madeline Kahn, Harvey Korman, Cloris Leachman and, of course, Brooks himself. He also starred in the first of Jarmusch's series of short films Coffee and Cigarettes (1986). Among his most popular films have been Young Frankenstein (co-written with Gene Wilder) and Blazing Saddles, both of which were released in 1974.

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. He later moved into film, working as an actor, director, writer and producer. Benigni has starred in two films by American Director Jim Jarmusch. With Buck Henry, he created the successful TV series Get Smart. Benigni's wife, Nicoletta Braschi, has starred with him in most of the films he directed. In 1961, with Carl Reiner, he created the persona of the 2000 Year Old Man, a collection of ad libbed comedy routines made into a series of comedy records. 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. He started out in show business as a stand-up comic before becoming a comedy writer for television, working on Your Show of Shows.

Benigni also directed The Monster (Il Mostro), Il piccolo diavolo (with Walter Matthau) and Johnny Stecchino. Born Melvin Kaminsky in Brooklyn, New York, Brooks served in the US Army during World War II as an engineer. 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). Mel Brooks (born June 28, 1926) is an American actor, writer and director, best known as a creator of broad film farces and parodies. 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. Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) (writer, director, actor). He was born in Misericordia, Tuscany, Italy. Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993) (writer, director, actor).

Roberto Benigni (born October 27, 1952) is an Italian film and television actor and director. Life Stinks (1991) (writer, director, actor). Spaceballs (1987) (writer, director, actor). To Be or Not to Be (1983) (actor). History of the World, Part I (1981) (writer, director, actor).

High Anxiety (1978) (writer, director, actor). Silent Movie (1976) (writer, director, actor). Blazing Saddles (1974) (writer, director, actor). Young Frankenstein (1974) (co-writer, director).

The Twelve Chairs (1970) (writer, director, actor). The Producers (1968) (writer, director; Academy Award, best original screenplay).