Actors - Beppe Grillo

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	Actors - Beppe Grillo

Giuseppe Grillo, better known as Beppe Grillo (July 21, 1948, Savignone di Genova, Genoa), is an Italian actor who works in theatres, movies, and television.

Biography

After receiving his degree as an accountant, Grillo became a comedian by chance, improvising a monologue in an audition. Two weeks later he was discovered and launched by Italian anchor-man Pippo Baudo. He subsequently participated in the variety show Secondo Voi for two years (1977-78). Later in 1979 he participated in Luna Park by Enzo Trapani, and Fantastico.

In the 1980s his success rose further, thanks to shows like Te la dò io l'America (1982, 4 episodes) and Te lo dò io il Brasile (1984, six episodes). He narrated the experiences linked to his personal visits to United States and Brazil, with anecdotes and witticisms about the culture, lifestyle and beauties of these places.

His popularity grew bigger and bigger. He was the protagonist of another show developed expecially for him, called Grillometro ("Grillo's measurement instrument"). In 1986, he was the protagonist of prize-winning advertisements for a brand of yogurt.

His performances began to be characterized by increasing satire, expressed often in a direct way that offended some of Italian politicians. In 1987 during the Saturday night show Fantastico 7, he attacked with heavy allusions the Italian Socialist Party and his leader Bettino Craxi, then Italy's Prime Minister. Grillo was therefore sent out of public owned television. From the beginning of the 1990s his appearances on television became rare: according to many people, the reason is a silent ostracism by politicians and brands offended by his revelations about hidden finance movements, frauds and false advertisement. When one of his spectacles was allowed to be broadcast by RAI, in 1993, it obtained a record share of 16 millions audience.

He currently performs in theatres, with outstanding success. Grillo's themes include energy usage, corruption, finance, freedom of thought, globalization, technology. In every performance Grillo encourages the use of Wikipedia as the future of knowledge sharing. He has an English/Italian blog site at where he writes a topic a day, and many people all over italy send their comments (also news about Wikipedia's diffusion can be found). According to Technorati, the blog is ranked among the 10 most popular blogs all over the world.

On 1 September, with the contribution of the readers of his blog, 2005 Grillo bought a page on the Italian newspaper La Repubblica to ask the resignation of the Bank of Italy's governor Antonio Fazio after the Antonveneta scandal. On October 2005 Time chose him as one of the "European Heroes 2005" for his attacks to corruption and financial scandals.

On 22 November, 2005 Grillo bought a page on The International Herald Tribune also, this time pointing out that members of Italian Parliament cannot represent citizens if they’ve been convicted in a definitive way by the courts . His blog contains a regularly updated list of members of Italian Parliament who had received a definitive conviction.

Legal problems

As Grillo usually cites by name firms and personalities during his spectacles, he has been charged several times. Curiously, when Italian judges investigated the Parmalat scandal, Grillo was called as "witness", as he had forecast the dairy conglomerate's crumble in one of his shows. He later mantained that Parmalat's financial holes were apparent to everybody who had sight enough to see them.

Filmography

Grillo acted in three movies:

Cercasì Gesù (1982)
Scemo di Guerra (1985)
Topo Galileo (1987)

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Beppe Grillo ]

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