Venantino Venantini

Venantino Venantini — Biography

Venantino Venantini was one of European cinema's hardest-working supporting actors, with a career that ran from the mid-1950s into the 2010s. In France he became a favourite of Georges Lautner, and in Italy he gained international recognition through the cult and exploitation films of the 1970s and 80s. He won the Nastro d'Argento for Best Supporting Actor for The Dinner (1998).

Born in Fabriano, he won a scholarship to the Beaux-Arts de Paris. To pay for his studies he worked as an extra in films such as Ben-Hur and as a translator at the American embassy in Rome. He first appeared on screen in a small part in Steno's Un giorno in pretura, and his first significant role was in Franco Rossi's Odissea Nuda (1961). In Italy he worked with Ettore Scola, Dino Risi and Luciano Salce, and then caught the eye of French directors. He made ten films with Lautner, among them Cop or Hood and Attention ! Une femme peut en cacher une autre, and appeared in Gérard Oury's Delusions of Grandeur. His co-stars included Lino Ventura, Yves Montand, Alain Delon and Gérard Depardieu. His cult titles include Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eye, Black Emanuelle, City of the Living Dead and Concorde Affaire '79.

Fluent in French and English as well as Italian, he kept painting throughout his life. In 2017 the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia held a retrospective of his work. He died in Viterbo in October 2018, aged 88; his son Luca Venantini is also an actor.