Alberto Sordi

Alberto Sordi Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (15 June 1920 – 24 February 2003) was an Italian actor, voice actor, singer, composer, comedian, director and screenwriter.[1][2]

Alberto Sordi
Sordi in 1962
Born(1920-06-15)15 June 1920
Rome, Italy
Died24 February 2003(2003-02-24) (aged 82)
Rome, Italy
Other namesAlbertone
OccupationActor, voice actor, singer, composer, comedian, director, screenwriter
Years active1937–1998
Height1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Websitealbertosordi.it

Early life

Born in Rome to a schoolteacher and a musician and the last of five children, he was named in honour of an older sibling, who died several days after his birth. Sordi enrolled in Milan's dramatic arts academy but was kicked out because of his thick Roman accent. In the meantime he studied to be a bass opera singer. His vocal distinctiveness would become his trademark.[3]

Career

Cinema and television

In a career that spanned seven decades, Sordi[4] established himself as an icon[5] of Italian cinema with his representative skills at both comedy and light drama. His movie career began in the late 1930s with bit parts and secondary characters in wartime movies. Early roles included Fellini's The White Sheik in 1952, Fellini's I vitelloni (1953), a movie about young slackers, in which he plays a weak, effeminate immature loafer and a starring role in The Bachelor as a single man trying to find love. Sordi was the major exponent of the literary genre of the Italian historical comedy in the ninenteenth century.[6]

In 1959, he appeared in Monicelli's Great War, considered by many critics and film historians to be one of the best Italian comedies. The Hollywood Foreign Press recognized his abilities when he was awarded a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture Actor in a Musical or Comedy for To Bed or Not to Bed (1963). Sordi acted alongside Britain's David Niven in the World War II comedy The Best of Enemies. In 1965, he was in another highly regarded comedy, I complessi (Complexes).

In 1969, he was a juror at the 6th Moscow International Film Festival.[7] In 1984, he directed and co-scripted Tutti dentro (Off to jail, everybody), in which he played a judge who has warrants for corruption served on ministers and businessmen.[8] In 1985, he was a member of the jury at the 35th Berlin International Film Festival.[9]

Dubbing

Sordi was also a prominent voice actor and dubber.[10] Prior to the war he began working as a dubber for the Italian versions of many Laurel and Hardy shorts and movies, voicing Oliver Hardy after winning an MGM contest for the Italian voice nearest to that of Oliver Hardy.[11] Sordi provided the voice of Hardy in more than forty Laurel and Hardy films from 1939 to 1951, paired with Mauro Zambuto, who voiced Stan Laurel. He also appeared as a voice actor in other Italian-language versions and Italian films.[12]

Sordi provided voice-overs for such actors as Bruce Bennett, Anthony Quinn, John Ireland, Robert Mitchum, Pedro Armendáriz and Frank Faylen. He also dubbed Italian actors such as Franco Fabrizi, Marcello Mastroianni and Enzo Fiermonte for English-speaking audiences. His own voice was dubbed over by Gualtiero De Angelis in Cuori nella tormenta and Carlo Romano in Bullet for Stefano. Sordi ceased his career as a dubber in 1956.

Personal life

Sordi was discreet about his private life. Despite never marrying or having children, Sordi has been in several relationships, including a nine-year lasting romance with actress Andreina Pagnani, who was almost 14 years his senior.[13]

Sordi was raised Roman Catholic.

Sordi was also a big supporter of AS Roma football team. This was something he expressed a fondness of in some of his films.

Awards

Sordi won seven David di Donatello, Italy's most prestigious film award, holding the record of David di Donatello as best actor, and four awards for his works from the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists. He also received a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival in 1995, and The Golden Globe Award[14] for his performance as an Italian labourer stranded in Sweden in To Bed or Not to Bed. In 2000, the City of Rome made him honorary mayor for a day to celebrate his eightieth birthday.

At the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival, he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor award for Detenuto in attesa di giudizio.[15] At the 13th Moscow International Film Festival he won a Special Prize for I Know That You Know That I Know.[16]

Sordi received honorary citizenship from Kansas City, Missouri for his references to the city in the 1954 film, Un americano a Roma.[17][18]

Illness and death

In 2001, Sordi was diagnosed with lung cancer, which caused his career to gradually decline.

Sordi died of pneumonia and bronchitis at his house in Rome on 24 February 2003. A crowd in excess of a million gathered to pay their last respects at his funeral by the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the largest of such event ever attended in Rome, second only to that of Pope John Paul II who died two years later.

Filmography
Sordi in Under the Sun of Rome (1948)
Sordi and Lea Padovani in Il seduttore (1954)

Actor

Director

Dubbing roles

Animation

Live action

Theatre

Actor

Composer and singer

References
  1. "Alberto Sordi's dubbing contributions". Antoniogenna.net. Retrieved June 22, 2019.
  2. informatici, Segretariato generale della Presidenza della Repubblica – Servizio sistemi. "Il sito ufficiale della Presidenza della Repubblica". Retrieved November 22, 2016.
  3. "Alberto Sordi". MYmovies. Retrieved April 20, 2020.
  4. Burton, Richard (October 23, 2012). The Richard Burton Diaries. ISBN 978-0300180107. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  5. "Alberto Sordi comic icon of Italian cinema". Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  6. José Pagliardini (2002). "Alberto Sordi patriote. L'Histoire par le rire, histoire d'en rire ?". Italies (in French). DOAJ (6): 415–428. doi:10.4000/italies.1627. ISSN 1275-7519. OCLC 8081002838.
  7. "6th Moscow International Film Festival (1969)". MIFF. Archived from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved December 17, 2012.
  8. "Italian actor Alberto Sordi". Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  9. "Berlinale: Juries". berlinale.de. Retrieved January 8, 2011.
  10. Cronologia fondamentale dell'epoca d'oro del doppiaggio italiano Dagli albori agli anni 1970 (in Italian)
  11. http://slowitaly.yourguidetoitaly.com/2013/02/alberto-sordi/
  12. "ALBERTO SORDI - 15/06/1920 - 24/02/2003" (in Italian). trovacinema.repubblica.it. Retrieved April 20, 2020.
  13. "ALBERTO SORDI E ANDREINA PAGNANI: CHI ERA LA COMPAGNA DELL'ATTORE" (in Italian). movieplayer.it. March 25, 2020. Retrieved April 28, 2020.
  14. "Alberto Sordi and Golden Globe Awards". Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  15. "Berlinale 1972: Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved March 16, 2010.
  16. "13th Moscow International Film Festival (1983)". MIFF. Archived from the original on November 7, 2013. Retrieved February 7, 2013.
  17. (in Italian) Biography of Alberto Sordi. See "1951–1960" Archived August 11, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
  18. Alberto Sordi on Roma Virtuale website; accessed 14 July 2020.(in Italian)

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