TV: dead Antonello Fassari, success with 'Avanzi' and 'I Cesaroni'

He will always remain connected to theatre, even trying his hand at directing with a successful adaptation of 'La ricotta' from Pasolini in 2004. Had he been born in Los Angeles, he would have cheered for the basketball 'Lakers' and carved out a role for himself as a great character actor in Hollywood.

Instead, Roman to the core, he cheered for Roma, played football, proved himself versed in dramatic roles, but also pulled genuine, vernacular comedy out of his hat, which he knew how to filter like few, always avoiding the provincial 'macchietta'.

So he made his TV debut in 1977 with "Il commissario De Vincenzi" and then in the cinema two years later alongside Gianni Cavina in Paolo Cavara's "Atsalut Pader", he put his nose in Alberto Lattuada's cast for "La cicala" and in Mauro Bolognini's screenplay "La certosa di Parma". Italian auteur cinema often called on him (directed by Memè Perlini, Marco Risi, Mario Monicelli, Carlo Mazzacurati), but it was a TV series, Claudio Risi's 'I ragazzi della 3C' (1986), that made him familiar to the general public. His Antonello Bufalotti known as Puccio was liked by the Vanzina brothers who made him an irresistible comic mask from 'Montecarlo, Gran Casinò' to 'Le finte bionde'.

His friendship with Claudio Amendola is a constant in his artistic life, cemented by the success of 'I Cesaroni' (from 2006 to 2014), then confirmed in Amendola's first two films as director, 'La mossa del pinguino' and 'Cassamortari'. In the meantime, Fassari also enjoyed popularity by joining the "gang" of "Avanzi" with Serena Dandini and discovered himself loved by directors as a dramatic actor in films by Marco Tullio Giordana ("Pasolini, un delitto italiano"), Carlo Lizzani (he is a formidable Aldo Fabrizi in "Celluloide"), Claudio Carmarca (R.D.S. with Andrea Occhipinti), Michele Placido (the Buffoni in 'Romanzo criminale'), Ettore Scola ('Gente di Roma'), Stefano Sollima ('Suburra').

He also tried his hand as a director with 'Il segreto del giaguaro' in 2000 and is a sanguine grandfather in Claudio Bisio's debut feature 'L'ultima volta che siamo stati bambini'.

Until last year he was able to work, overcoming the illness of depression and a painful chronic angina, but he felt 'corroded inside'. In his private life he was cheerful, ironic, elegant with a Roman dialect that quoted Belli and Trilussa. He leaves behind a daughter and a sea of memories among the many colleagues who always loved and celebrated him on the set as on the stage.

'You will always be my brother': Claudio Amendola mourns the death of Antonello Fassari, the actor with whom he shared the Cesaroni adventure and more. "We knew that this new series would be dedicated to him because we were aware of the bastard illness that had struck him, but we were not prepared for the news. For me it's a piece of life that's going away, it's hard to even talk,' he tells ANSA with emotion. 'I expect he's mumbling somewhere up there'.