Giovanni "Ninetto" Davoli (born 11 October 1948) is an Italian actor who became known through his roles in several of Pier Paolo Pasolini's films.
Ninetto Davoli | |
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Born | |
Occupation | Actor |
Years active | 1964–present |
Height | 1.74 m (5 ft 9 in) |
Davoli was born in San Pietro a Maida, Calabria. He was discovered by poet, novelist and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini, then 41, who had begun a relationship with Davoli, then a 15-year-old boy, in 1963. Pasolini considered him to be "the great love of his life," and he later cast him in his 1966 film Uccellacci e uccellini (literally Bad Birds and Little Birds but translated in English as The Hawks and the Sparrows), co-starred with celebrated comic Totò. Pasolini became the youth's mentor and friend. "Even though their sexual relations lasted only a few years, Ninetto continued to live with Pasolini and was his constant companion, as well as appearing in six more of his films."[1]
First cast in a non-speaking role in the film Il vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to St. Matthew, 1964), Davoli played mostly comical-naïve roles in several more of Pasolini's films, the last of which was Il fiore delle Mille e una Notte (A Thousand and One Nights/Arabian Nights, 1974).
The Trilogy of Life was made at a harsh junction in the lives of Davoli and Pasolini. It was during the filming of The Canterbury Tales that Davoli left Pasolini to marry a woman. Behind the scenes, this ruined Pasolini's mood and he began composing nihilistic and angry poetry.[2] For his next film, Arabian Nights, Pasolini did with Davoli what he had never done in a previous film: he showed Davoli's naked genitalia on screen. It is in this film that Davoli's character Aziz is a very selfish and unfeeling man whose rejection of a woman causes her death and which results in his own castration on screen. Pasolini's own hurt feelings are very evident here in what is for the most part a lighthearted fantasy film.
After Pasolini's death in 1975, Davoli turned increasingly to television productions.
In May 2015, Davoli was announced as recipient of a special Nastro d'Argento Career Award.[3]