
Renato Rascel
Born
April 27, 1912
Died
January 2, 1991 (78 years old)
Known For
Acting
Place of Birth
Turin, Piedmont, Italy
Renato Rascel (stage name of Renato Ranucci; 27 April 1912 – 2 January 1991), was an Italian film actor and singer. He appeared in 50 films between 1942 and 1972. He represented Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1960 with the song "Romantica" which was placed equal eighth out of thirteen entries.
He was born to Cesare and Paola Ranucci in Turin. It was in Turin where his parents, who were opera singers, were performing a show at the time Renato could really say that he was born in the back stage of the theater and that's where he spent all of his life. His father tried to make it up to him by having him baptized at Saint Peter's in Rome and apparently it worked because growing up in that neighborhood he ended up singing for the "white voices choir" of Saint Peter with the leadership of composer-conductor Lorenzo Perosi.
At the age of 14 Renato started to play drums in ballrooms around Rome. Soon after, he joined the Di Fiorenza Sisters as an actor, dancer and clown and in 1934 he was hired for his first big role by the Schwarts Brothers in the operetta "Al Cavallino bianco". In 1935, he joined Elena Gray for his first foreign tour in Africa.
In 1941 he created his own theater company and he began to develop his distinctive kind of humor that in the following years will crown him as the inventor of the "non-sense" with phrases like "two friends that didn't know each other". He decided to make his small size work for him, being only 5'2" tall, one of his major assets becoming known as the "Tiny Italian" (il piccoletto nazionale) and in his show he accentuated his stature by wearing huge extravagant coats, his most famous one had a large pocket on the back.
In this time he created some of his most famous characters such as "Napoleon" and "Il Corazziere" (a parody on his size since the Corazziere is a military division that employs only soldiers over 6 feet tall) that brought him to an extraordinary popularity in Italy. In 1942 he shot the first of a long series of films, Pazzo d'amore (Crazy For Love) developing and establishing his very peculiar kind of humor. Among the sixty plus films he worked in, one of the most relevant was Il Cappotto (The Overcoat) by Gogol, winner of the Golden Palm in Cannes.
He also had a leading role in The Secret of Santa Vittoria with Anthony Quinn and Anna Magnani, Seven Hills of Rome with Mario Lanza, Questi fantasmi with Eduardo De Filippo and Figaro qua Figaro là with Totò. In 1977, he appeared in the Zeffirelli film Jesus of Nazareth as the blind man.
His post second World War success is due mainly to his leading roles in the musicals by Pietro Garinei and Sandro Giovannini. The artistic trio is responsible for the existence of the "musical" in Italy with Attanasio cavallo vanesio in 1952 (featuring the American trio Peters Sisters, Alvaro piuttosto corsaro (1953), Tobia la candida spia (1955), Un paio d'ali (1957), Rascelinaria (1958), Enrico '61 (1961), and also performed for an entire year in London at the Piccadilly Theatre in 1962, along with Il giorno della tartaruga (1965) and Alleluja, brava gente (1970). ...
Source: Article "Renato Rascel" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Known For

Jesus of Nazareth
The Blind Man · (4 episodes)
1977

Un sorriso, uno schiaffo, un bacio in bocca
(archive footage)
1975

Pinocchio
Narratore (voce)
1972

I racconti di padre Brown
Padre Brown · (6 episodes)
1971

I racconti di Padre Brown
Padre Brown
1970

Transplant
Dario Barbieri
1970

The Secret of Santa Vittoria
Babbaluche
1970
Delirio a due
Lui
1967

Follie d'estate
il sognatore
1963

Questi fantasmi
1962

The Orderly
Remigio De Acutis
1961

The Last Judgment
Coppola
1961

Destination Fury
Renato Micacci
1961
Enrico '61
1961

Il corazziere
Urbano Marangoni
1960

The Bear
Medard
1960

Little Girls and High Finance
1960

A Soldier and a Half
Nicola Carletti
1960

Ferdinand I King of Naples
Mimì
1959

Uncle Was a Vampire
Baron Osvaldo Lambertenghi
1959

Policarpo, ufficiale di scrittura
Policarpo De Tappetti
1959

Rascel Marine
Caporale Ronny Rascel
1958

Move and I'll Shoot
Renato Tuzzi - il professore
1958

Seven Hills of Rome
Pepe Bonelli
1957

Rascel-Fifì
Renato / Renatino - il suo figlio
1957

Oh! Sabella
Don Gregorio (uncredited)
1957

The Monte Carlo Story
Duval
1956

I pinguini ci guardano
1956

Cinépanorama
Self · (1 episode)
1956

Variety carousel
1955

Io sono la Primula Rossa
Sir Archibald
1954

These Phantoms
Pasquale Lojacono
1954

Rosso e nero
Himself
1954

Gran varietà
Il comico
1954

Alvaro piuttosto corsaro
Alvaro
1954

Il matrimonio
Dmitry Marinin, il 'generale'
1954

Attanasio cavallo vanesio
1953

Piovuto dal cielo
Renato
1953

Ho scelto l'amore
Boris Popovic
1953

La passeggiata
Paolo Barbato
1953

Il bandolero stanco
Pepito
1952

The Overcoat
Carmine De Carmine
1952

L'eroe sono io
Righetto
1952

Half a Century of Song
1952

Love I Haven't... But... But
Teodoro
1951

Napoleone
Napoleone
1951

Io sono il capataz
Uguccione / Rascelito Villa
1951

Beauties on bicycles
Il figlio del meccanico
1951

Figaro qua... Figaro là
Don Alonzo
1950

I'm in the Revue
Self
1950

Maracatumba... ma non è una rumba!
rag. Filippo De Bellis
1949
Pazzo d'amore
1942