Ninetto Davoli: Movies & Box Office

Ninetto Davoli, born Giovanni Davoli on 11 October 1948 in San Pietro a Maida, Calabria, Italy, emerged from a modest Southern upbringing to become one of the most recognizable faces of Italian art cinema. At the age of fifteen he was discovered by the poet‑filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, who was then forty‑one and instantly captivated by the teenager’s innocent charm and expressive eyes. Their relationship quickly turned romantic and mentorship alike; Pasolini described Davoli as “the great love of his life,” and he cast the young man in a non‑speaking part as a shepherd boy in Il vangelo secondo Matteo (1964). The following year Davoli appeared as the naive “Innocenti Ninetto” in Uccellacci e uccellini (1966), sharing screen time with the legendary Totò, and thus cemented his reputation for portraying comic‑naïve characters that perfectly suited Pasolini’s allegorical narratives. Over the next decade Davoli featured in six more Pasolini masterpieces, including Teorema (1968) as the messenger Angelino, Il Decameron (1971) as Andreuccio of Perugia, and the controversial Il fiore delle Mille e una Notte (1974) where he played Aziz, a selfish man whose on‑screen castration mirrored the director’s personal anguish after the actor’s departure to marry.