Born in Trastevere
Twenty years without Alberto Sordi: the giant of Italian cinema left on 24 February 2003. He was born on 15 June 1920 in via San Cosimato 7 in Rome, in the Trastevere district, the last son of music professor and instrumentalist Pietro Sordi ( 1897 – 1941, double bass tuba in the orchestra of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma) and of the elementary teacher Maria Righetti (1898 – 1952).
Brothers and sisters
The Sordi family also consisted of his sister Savina (1911 – 1972), his brother Giuseppe (1915 – 1990) and his sister Aurelia (1917 – 2014), while the third son, named Alberto, died in 1916 after a few days of life ( the actor was baptized with his own name in his memory).
Generous (and not stingy)
In the volume “Alberto Sordi secret” released in 2020 Igor Righetti – historical voice of Radio1 as well as the actor’s cousin – revealed numerous anecdotes. Deaf people, for example, were said to be stingy. He was actually very generous: “Anyone who really knew Alberto knows that he attended orphanages and that he had sponsored dozens of children, philanthropy always done in silence, as was his style”.
Private life
«What am I crazy? I put a stranger inside the house?!». Very little has always been leaked about the private life of Alberto Sordi – who never married and never had children. It is known that at the age of 22 he became engaged to fellow actress Andreina Pagnani, 14 years older than him, whom he met in the dubbing studio, and that the story ended in the early 1950s. Speaking of flirting, Sordi had a fleeting love story in the early seventies with the Countess Patrizia de Blanck.
He has always lived in Rome
He lived from birth until 1930 in via San Cosimato 7 in Rome. Following the demolition of the building, the actor’s family moved into an apartment in via Venezia, and then moved after his father’s death in 1941 to an apartment in via dei Pettinari. From 1958 until his death, Sordi lived in a villa in via Druso located inside the archaeological park of the Baths of Caracalla (now a house museum).
Expelled from the Drama Academy
Perhaps not everyone knows that Alberto Sordi lived in Milan for a very short period of his life, in the second half of the 1930s when he attended the amateur dramatics academy. From which he was expelled due to his marked Romanesque inflection.
The beginnings as an extra
In 1937, having returned to the capital from Milan, Sordi found work as an extra in Cinecittà. He appeared in the blockbuster Scipio Africanus as a Roman soldier. Subsequently, after playing minor roles in about twenty films, popularity arrived in the 1950s: Sordi made himself known first in “The White Sheik” by Federico Fellini (1952) then in “I Vitelloni”, also by Fellini (1953). , and in Steno’s films «A day in the district court» (1953), «An American in Rome» (1954) and «Piccola posta» (1955).
Voice of Oliver Hardy
From 1939 to 1951 Alberto Sordi dubbed Oliver Hardy (the Hardy of the comic couple Laurel and Hardy). He started after winning a contest run by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. On June 25, 1950, the actor had the opportunity to meet and dub Hardy live on the occasion of an Italian tour of the comic couple at Villa Aldobrandini in Rome, where a children’s show had been organized. As a dubber Sordi worked until 1956: he lent his voice to numerous actors including Anthony Quinn, Robert Mitchum, Franco Fabrizi and even Marcello Mastroianni (in the film “Sunday in August” of 1950).
The meeting with Harry Truman
Alberto Sordi’s popularity has crossed national borders. In 1955, as a reward for the positive promotion of the United States in relation to the character of Nando Moriconi (“An American in Rome”), the president of the United States Harry Truman gave him the keys to the city of Kansas City and the position of honorary governor of the American Royal.
The epitaph
On the tomb of Alberto Sordi, who rests in the family chapel in the Verano Monumental Cemetery in Rome, the epitaph «Sor Marchese, è l’ora» is engraved, a line taken from one of his most famous films: «The Marchese del Grillo » (directed in 1981 by Mario Monicelli).