Ugo Tognazzi; King of Italian Movie Comedies

Ugo Tognazzi, the barrel-chested onetime bookkeeper who portrayed a series of comic film characters baffled by life’s cruel jests, has died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 68.

The Italian news agency ANSA reported Sunday that the actor died late Saturday night in a Rome clinic where he was undergoing treatment after a stroke.

Hailed by audiences around the world as the king of Italian comedy, Tognazzi became a fixture in the international film community in 1979 when he appeared as Renato, the proprietor of the bizarre club “La Cage aux Folles,” or The Cage of Crazy Ladies.

It was all of that and more.

Tognazzi portrayed the employer and 20-year lover of the club’s star performer, the female impersonator Zaza (Michel Serrault), in the adaptation of the stage farce.

In the picture, Tognazzi’s straight son has just gotten engaged and informed his father that he is about to bring to dinner his fiancee’s parents, two bastions of conservatism.

Chaos follows.

Although the picture, and two sequels, established Tognazzi as a star outside Italy, he had been appearing in movies for two decades after abandoning a career as a bookkeeper and accountant.

Because of the illness of his father, Tognazzi had been forced to go to work at age 15, keeping records in a salami factory. But he found time to act on the amateur stage.

In 1950, he made his first movie, “I Caddetti of Guascogna” (The Cadets of Guascogna). He followed that with a series of films in the 1950s that made him a popular character actor.

In the 1960s, Tognazzi matured as an actor with a series of creative roles in satirical films such as Luciano Salce’s “Il Federale” (The Fascist), which is still considered one of Tognazzi’s greatest.

After his success in “Il Federale” and Dino Risi’s “La Marcia Su Roma” (The March on Rome), Tognazzi met Marco Ferreri, the director who gave him some of his greatest roles.

With Ferreri, Tognazzi made films such as “Una Storia Moderna: l’Ape Regina” (The Conjugal Bed) in 1963; “La Donna Scimmia” (The Ape Woman) in 1964; “Marcia Nuziale” (Wedding March) in 1966; “L’Udienza” (The Audience) in 1971, and “La Grande Bouffe” (The Grand Comedy) in 1973.

He also starred in Roger Vadim’s film futuristic comedy “Barbarella,” starring Vadim’s then wife, Jane Fonda.

In many of his pictures he was a husband who married well but whose seeming good fortune turns to sardonic horror.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, Tognazzi tackled more dramatic roles. In 1981, he won the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or award as best actor for his role in Bernardo Bertolucci’s “La Tragedia di un Uomo Ridicolo” (The Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man).

In 1989, he sparked a controversy in Italian government circles when he improvised lines about corruption in high places during a stage version of Moliere’s classic “The Miser.”

Tognazzi is survived by his wife, Franca Bettoia, and four children.