CICCIO INGRASSIA AND THE FAREWELL TO COLLEAGUE FRANCO: “A BROTHER HAS GONE”
Fatty Ingrassiawho was and how did one of the historical members of one of the most famous comedy couples in the world of entertainment die, and not only in Italian latitudes? This evening, in the now customary summer appointment with the amarcord and the video tidbits from the archive of “Techetechete’” (on Rai 1, in access prime time), the episode that the public service format dedicates to Franco and Ciccio, edited by Giulio Calcinari, will allow us to have a nostalgic leap back in timeretracing the career of the two eclectic Sicilian artists through their most beautiful television performances. And if in another piece today we made a portrait of Franchihere we turn the spotlight on Ciccio Ingrassia.
Franco Franchi, how did he die and why did he fight with Ciccio Ingrassia?/ The mafia accusations and the illness…
Ciccio Ingrassia, born Francesco and from Palermo like his colleague and lifelong friend, he was born in October 1922, then passed away like Franchi in that Rome which had now adopted the two comedians in April 2003, almost eleven years after the death of his companion who instead left us at just 64 years old. Protagonist in the Franco and Ciccio duo of over one hundred films between the Sixties and the Eighties (the golden period of the couple but also of a certain way of making cinema and of a popular film genre). Then the first arguments, which however were constant in their career, and the separation even if the two then ‘found each other’ on television before Franco’s illness definitively put an end to their partnership. But what do we know about the report by Ciccio Ingrassia with his colleague and what did the decision to walk away for a short period mean for him?
Rosaria Calì, Ciccio Ingrassia’s wife: who is she?/ The disappearance in 2019, the son: “We will never stop…”
THE DEATH OF CICCIO INGRASSIA: “WITH HIM, A CINEMA THAT…” ENDED FOREVER
Although much of the best things about the duo’s output date back to the golden age of ‘Franco and Ciccio’it should be remembered that the separation also brought Ciccio Ingrassia prestigious awards and collaborations with directors of the calibre of Federico Fellini. Protagonists of some brawls, even live, and of different artistic visions, in the second half of the Seventies the two decided to take different paths: according to some, Ciccio’s choice to interpret a dramatic role in a film and which would have irritated the partner. Subsequently Ingrassia acted in “Amarcord” (1973) and in “Todo modo” by Elio Petri, an interpretation which also earned him a Silver Ribbon as Best Supporting Actor, thus rewarding his choice to dedicate himself to other genres outside of comedy.
Giampiero Ingrassia, who is Ciccio’s son/ “Breakup with Franco Franchi? Arguments like in every couple but..”
Despite reconciliation in 1980with a live apology on “Domenica In” and participation together in some television programs, Ciccio Ingrassia’s story with Franco Franchi was now approaching the closing credits: with the death of his colleague in 1992 (“A brother has passed away”, he said), the former also began to reduce his appearances on the small screen. Ingrassia died on 23 April 2003, at the age of 80, at the ‘Agostino Gemelli’ Polyclinic in Rome, due to some breathing problems from which he had been suffering for some time. Today the actor rests at the Verano Monumental Cemetery in the capital and the epitaph is engraved on his tomb: “Hold me just for a little while, you know you’ll make me smile”, a phrase that is well suited to that ‘sad face of comedy’ that Nino Manfredi coined for him. With Franco and Ciccio a period had ended, indeed: “They were not finished, as actors. A certain type of cinema had ended”, as explained in “How we got Italian cinema into trouble – The true story of Franco and Ciccio” (2004) by Cipri and Maresco.
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