Franco Fabrizi (15 February 1916 Cortemaggiore - 18 October 1995) was an Italian actor.

Life and career

Son of a barber and of a cinema cashier, Franco Fabrizi started his career as a model and an actor in fotoromanzi. Fabrizi also starred on several revues and stage works, then he debuted on big screen with a supporting role in Chronicle of a Love (Cronaca di un amore) (1950), Michelangelo Antonioni's long film debut.

The role that made him known him was the role of Fausto in Federico Fellini's I vitelloni; from then he was inextricably linked to the character of a full-time seducer, a young wastrel, a young not-so-young man who refuses to grow up, a character that he reprised, with different facets, in a great number of films. Past the fifties, Fabrizi was mainly relegated in character roles in Italian, French and Spanish minor productions; he still appeared on several major works of Italian cinema, and one of his last great roles was in Luchino Visconti's Death in Venice.

In 1993 he had a serious car accident from which he recovered; immediately after, however, it manifested the illness that led him to death. Fabrizi died of a bowel cancer in 1995.

Selected filmography

• Chronicle of a Love (Cronaca di un amore) Michelangelo Antonioni, (1950)
• I Vitelloni, Federico Fellini (1953)
• Torna! (1953)
• Vortice (1953)
• Schiava del peccato (1954)
• Camilla (film) (1954)
• Woman of Rome (La romana), Dino Risi (1954)
• Il bidone, Federico Fellini (1955)
• Le amiche, Michelangelo Antonioni (1955)
• Racconti romani (1955)
• Calabuch, Luis García Berlanga (1956)
• Noi siamo le colonne (1956)
• No Sun in Venice (1957)
• Nights of Cabiria, Federico Fellini (1957)
• Racconti d'estate (1958)
• Un maledetto imbroglio, Pietro Germi (1959)
• I Genitori in Blue-Jeans (1960)
• The Wastrel (1961)
• Orazi e curiazi (1961)
• A Difficult Life (Una Vita Difficile), Dino Risi (1961)
• Copacabana Palace (1962)
• Gli onorevoli (1963)
• La donna degli altri è sempre più bella (1963)
• Night Train to Milan (1963)
• Via Margutta (1963)
• Rat Trap (1963)
• The Birds, the Bees and the Italians (Signore e signori), Pietro Germi (1965)
• Una questione d'onore (1965)
• Io la conoscevo bene, Antonio Pietrangeli(1966)
• Le Petit Baigneur (1968)
• Anyone Can Play (1968)
• Death in Venice (film) (Morte a Venezia), Luchino Visconti (1971)
• La Mala ordina (1972)
• La Polizia ringrazia (1972)
• Touche pas à la femme blanche, Marco Ferreri (1974)
• The Flower in His Mouth (1975)
• Action (1980)
• Ginger and Fred (1986)
• The Little Devil (Il piccolo diavolo), Roberto Benigni (1988)
• Ricky e Barabba (1992)