Happy 65th Birthday Nino Davoli

Giovanni ‘Nino’ Davoli was born in San Pietro a Maida, in the province of Catanzaro, Italy October 11, 1948. After his birth, Davoli settled with his parents in Rome, in the then growing slums of Borghetto Prenestino at Via Prenestina. A sympathetic but typical Roman soft spoken and with an big smile, he was discovered by Pier Paolo Pasolini who, after appearing in the film “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” (1964), chose him to co-star alongside Toto in the film “The Hawks and the Sparrows” (1966) and, subsequently, in the episode “The Earth Seen from the Moon” (“The Witches”, 1967) and his only Euro-western “Kill and Pray” as Nino in 1967, “Che cosa sono le nuvole?” (Capriccio 1968). Thus began a long professional and personal association, since 1963, ending only at the tragic death of the poet and director. It was Davoli who identified the body of Pier Paolo Pasolini, on the morning of November 2, 1975, after the assassination of the director.

 
With Pasolini, Davoli shot a total of nine films, the last of which was “Il fiore delle mille e una note” (1974). Pasolini’s death marked an inevitable decline in Dino’s career.
 
He created an intense and long association with Sergio Citti, with whom in 1970 he debuted in the film “Ostia” and later between 1973 and 1996 the next nefarious “Storie scellerate”, “Casotto”, “Il minestrone”, “Sogni e bisogni” (l'episodio I ladri) and “I magi randagi.”
 
Specializing in brilliant roles, however Davoli had his best performances in dramatic roles in films such as “Uno su due” by Eugenio Cappuccio, which received great critical acclaim and wins the 2006 Lara at the first Festival of Cinema in Rome, and in “Cemento armature”, film noir Roman setting of Marco Martan .
 
On television in 1975, he appeared in the drama “The Adventures of Calandrino”, “Calandrino and Buffalmacco” by Piero and Carlo Pieroni Tuzii .
 
In 1979 he starred in the musical comedy “Addavenì quel giorno e quella sera”, along with Adriana Asti, with the songs, in Roman dialect, are all written by Antonello Venditti and sung by Davoli, either alone or in duos with Asti.
 
In 2008 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award IOMA.
 
Aside from the extensive filmography and numerous theater roles, Ninetto Davoli also owes its great popularity to the character of " Gigetto ", the protagonist of ‘Carousel’ in the early seventies: for advertising crackers in the Saiwa states, starting in 1972, the series “Le canzoni alla Gigetto”, in which a boy dressed as a baker (in Roman dialect, cascherino) zipping through Rome at dawn on a bicycle, belting out some well-known songs of those years, with a hilarious comic effect.
 
Ninetto Davoli, who married in the early seventies, has two children and lives in Rome in the Cinecittà neighborhood. He is part of the Italian national football team made ​​up of singers and actors (the ItalianAttori ), which participates in charity tournaments, and is a Roma fan.
 
Today we celebrate Nino Davoli’s 65^th birthday.