13.10.11 Lino Banfi

Lino Banfi is the stage name of Pasquale Zagaria, born in Andria, province of Bari, in 1937. He is one of the most loved and celebrated names in the history of Italian film comedy. His interest in theatre began when he was a boy and he launched his acting career in 1954 when he moved to Milan and developed a curtain raiser act under the name of Lino Zaga.
His characterisations soon made him one of the most admired performers on the post-war cabaret circuit. Zagaria, morphing into Banfi, became famous for his heavily accented Bari patter and soon began to find roles also in film comedies, which led to a move to Rome, where his successful theatre career continued.
In the1970s Banfi found the platform that would make made him famous to the Italian public: the tit'n'bum comedies that packed the country's cinemas at that time. Often teamed up with Alvaro Vitali or Renzo Montagnani, Banfi became an icon of the genre in his eternal and hopeless pursuit of beauties such as Edwige Fenech and Gloria Guida. In the1980s Banfi continued to score hit after hit with
light entertainment films such as Vieni avanti cretino, Occhio malocchio prezzemolo e finocchio, L'allenatore nel pallone and Il commissario Lo gatto, all films still loved today by thousands of fans, thanks to repeated showings on television down the years.
In the meantime the Puglia comic became a TV star in his own right; in fact, with the 1988 release of Com'è dura l'avventura, Banfi abandoned the cinema to devote himself exclusively to the small screen, first as a presenter (Domenica In and Stasera Lino) and
then as an actor in a role that made him again the darling of the greater public: grandad Libero in the successful drama series Un medico in famiglia. He returned to the cinema screens only in 2007 to done the garb of Oronzo Canà one more time, in the sequel to
L'allenatore nel pallone.
He has been a UNICEF ambassador since 2000 and actively participates in campaigns for the protection of children in the third world.