Handsome, pace, class, worthy of the country where he was born, the comedian Italian Venantino Venantini, whose face is more likely to say more than the name, died Tuesday, October 9, at the age of 88 years.
Particularly known in France for having played Pascal, the man of hand-phlegmatic, “in the presence reassuring,” the gangster “the Mexican” in Crooks in clover (1963), a film by Georges Lautner that he was the last surviving member of the band, Venantino Venantini has led a career of each side of the Alps. Turning point also well under the direction of Ettore Scola, Lucio Fulci, Dino Risi, Joe Damato… that of Claude Lelouch, Edouard Molinaro, Jean Yanne, Christian-Jaque and Georges Lautner.
Born on 17 April 1930 in the province of Ancona, Venantino Venantini had left Italy to follow the courses of the Ecole nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris and become a painter.
To finance his studies, he runs the castings in the hope of winning small roles, appearing in the film. It is as well that he finds on the sets of Ben-Hur, Quo Vadis, Cleopatra and get spotted by the Italian director Franco Rossi that will provide him with his first real role in The Odyssey naked in 1961.
Second knife popular
It doesn’t need more to this boy with a charming, discreet and elegant to appeal to other filmmakers. Georges Lautner is one of those people, who will turn in six of his other feature films : The dandelions by the root, Galia, The Large Grasshopper, Attention, a woman can hide another…
But it is with The Crooks in clover that the actor creates an image of a second knife popular with the role of “first trigger” drôlissime, door-gun, the verb, neat and relaxing fast. In 1965, he was back in “Mickey in the person who stutters” in The Corniaud, Gérard Oury, a new opportunity for the actor to impose its silhouette with the general public.
The filmography of Venantino Venantini is enriched with the proposals that are made, both in Italy and in France of which he speaks the language fluently, with this slight accent alps that appeals to women. The actor is not limited to any registry – comedy, peplum, fantasy, spaghetti western, thriller, drama – and all the key roles. It gives the replica to Louis de Funès, Bourvil, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, folds to a selection of friendship as much as of admiration.
When the film the sulks, Venantini plays for television in series such as Frank Riva with Alain Delon, Mafiosa or Greco. And back in the halls at the end of the year 2000, with Our 18 years (2008), by Frédéric Berthe, or I’ve always wanted to be a gangster (2007), Samuel Benchetrit. A painter, yet this is what he had dreamed of becoming. In recent years, he was dedicated. His paintings had been exhibited in 2015 at the mairie of the 9th arrondissement in Paris.
Read obituary : Georges Lautner, the father of the “Crooks in clover”, is death
