Giorgio Faletti

Giorgio Faletti — Biography

After completing a law degree, Giorgio Faletti launched his stage career as a comedian in the 1970s at Milan's Derby Club, sharing its stage with future stars Paolo Rossi, Massimo Boldi, Teo Teocoli and Diego Abatantuono. He carried the character he developed there, Vito Catozzo, into Drive In, the Antonio Ricci show that made him nationally known in 1985; in the early 1990s he also wrote a regular rally and Formula One column for the magazine Autosprint.

On the music side he became a fixture of the Sanremo Festival, taking second place in 1994 with Signor Tenente, a song about the Capaci and Via D'Amelio mafia bombings that also won the critics' award. He turned to writing that same year with a comic novel, then suffered a minor stroke at the end of 2002, the year his debut thriller I Kill sold four million copies; his second novel sold three and a half million and helped bring him a De Sica Prize for Literature from the Italian president in 2005. Writer Jeffery Deaver called him larger than life, a living legend. His part in the 2006 film Notte prima degli esami brought a David di Donatello nomination, after which he published the novels Io sono Dio, Appunti di un venditore di donne and Tre atti e due tempi.

Named head of the Astense Library in 2012 and a lifelong Juventus supporter, Faletti died of lung cancer at 63 on 4 July 2014; in 2019 the Italy-USA Foundation honoured him posthumously with the America Award.