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ACTORS Italy

French press salutes Alberto Sordi

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Although he was not all that well-known to French audiences, the leading daily newspapers paid tribute to Italian actor-director Alberto Sordi who died in Rome on 25 February.
An article in today’s "Le Monde" describes Sordi as “the actor who, together with Totò and Ugo Tognazzi, symbolized Italian comedy”. He was “the first to bear public witness to fascist Italy, the Resistance, the reconstruction of the country and its consequent prosperity. He accompanied us during the expansion and the decline of an industry of which Sordi was one of the finest ornaments. ”
According to ”Le Parisien”, Alberto Sordi was “a king of comedy”. In 1993, the then French culture minister, Jacques Toubon (currently the president of Eurimages) presented Sordi with France’s highest honour, the Légion d’Honneur medal. Today’s headline in “Libération” is “Italy mourns her beloved clown” and “his death marks the passing of one of Italian cinema’s monstre sacres, a recurring comment in numerous publications and followed by the long list of Sordi’s most celebrated film directors from Vittorio De Sica, Ettore Scola, Dino Risi, Mario Monicelli to Luigi Comencini.

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(Translated from French)

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