FRANCO CITTI

15 Jan

(23 April 1935 - 14 January 2016)

The Italian actor, son of actor Santino Citti, met director Pier Paolo Pasolini through his brother, writer-director Sergio Citti, who cast him with many other non-professional players in the title role of Accatone (1961), Pasolini’s debut as a director, a story of street life in Rome among the pimps and prostitutes. He was in Pasolini’s next film, Mamma Roma, with Anna Magnani, and later films such as the title role in Oedipus Rex and Pigsty, The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights. Citti had no training as an actor but did have a natural talent and photographed well. He acted in nearly 70 films and television programmes including working with directors Brunello Rondi, Sergio Corbucci, Marcel Carné and many films directed by his brother. Franco also co-directed a film with Sergio, Cartoni Animati in 1997, shortly before he suffered a stroke. He played Calo in The Godfather: A Novel for Television (1977), a mini-series comprising Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, The Godfather II with extra footage. He also appeared in The Godfather III in 1990.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

FRANCO CITTI

ANTHONY SIMMONS

ALAN RICKMAN