Carlo Verdone

Carlo Gregorio Verdone (born 17 November 1950) is an Italian actor, screenwriter and film director. Verdone is best known for his comedic roles in Italian classics, which he also wrote and directed. His career was jumpstarted by his first three successes, Un sacco bello (1980), Bianco, rosso e Verdone (1981) and Borotalco (1982). Since the 1990s, he has been introducing more serious subjects in his work, linked to the excesses of society and the individual's hardships in confronting it; some examples are Maledetto il giorno che t'ho incontrata (1992), Il mio miglior nemico (2006) and Io, loro e Lara (2010). Early life Carlo Verdone was born in Rome to Mario Verdone, an important Italian film critic and academic, and studied at the Italian Liceo classico in Rome, having the future actor Christian De Sica as his deskmate. Subsequently, Verdone earned a degree in Modern Literature at Sapienza University of Rome, the same university where his father taught, and a degree in Film Direction at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. During the 1970s he started a television career highlighting his varied comic style, acting as well in some ads in the Carosello show and he started to introduce his characters on television in 1978 in the popular comedy series "Non Stop". Movie career Verdone made his debut as a director in 1980 with the movie Un sacco bello, in which he played three different characters. He used the same formula of the first work in 1981, when he directed Bianco, rosso e Verdone, a funny movie about three different men during election day in Italy. The movie, produced by his mentor Sergio Leone, was a great success in Italy, thanks to his brilliant comic energy and to his odd characters and had the soundtrack composed by Ennio Morricone.