The last of seven children, he was born in Cercola, where his parents had moved to temporarily from Naples. On returning to Naples, he pursued classical studies with wholehearted commitment. A model student of the high school Umberto, he dreamt of becoming a champion in the boxing ring. Boxing: a passion that accompanied him throughout his life. In Naples, between Riviera of Chiaia and boulevard Regina Elena, he studied during the day while at night, behind his parent’s back, between one escapade and another, he got involved with risky and socially marginalised groups . A double life that however did not prevent him from getting his degree in law. But in the meanwhile, his elder brother Vincenzo with pretensions of becoming a director, instructed him in the role of Caronte, in a stage set of piled up chairs. At the age of eighteen, he enrolled at the university in the faculty of Medicine but after one year shifted to the Law faculty. During his university days, out of pure intellectual curiosity, he experienced his first impact with the stage at Theatre S. acting in plays by Beckett and Ionesco. To train his voice to the right pitch and to improve his diction he had to make the most of his study time. For never-ending afternoons of his academic years. his family listened to him declaiming dramatically long chapters from The History of Law, and long sequences from his books on the Penal Code. Only much later, after having recited for two whole seasons (1966-67, 1967-68) in the stage company of Eduardo De Filippo , and after having graduated, did he finally recognise his calling and true vocation as an actor. In 1969 he meets the actress Cecilia Sacchi when they were acting together in Le donne by Aristophane in the Greek Theatre of Segesta in Sicily. He establishes with Cecilia a strong and long-lasting personal relationship which leads to their marriage on October 14,1972 and the birth of their daughter Giovanna on 9th November 1974.
After moving to Rome, for some time he dedicated his time once again to the theatre, where he worked in the company of the Giuffre’ brothers and Lauretta Masiero, then with Gianni Santuccio, Gianrico Tedeschi and Mario Scaccia and in a cooperative with Flavio Bucci, Stefano Satta-Flores, Cristiano Censi and Isabella Del Bianco. In 1971 he made his debut in television, along with Michele Placido in Indagine su una rapina directed by Gian Pietro Calasso and subsequently in cinema in 1975 with the film Cecilia directed by Jean Louis Comolli . In 1975 he makes his debut in cinema. He takes part in many successful television series like Il picciotto by Alberto Negrin, Il Marsigliese by Giacomo Battiato, L’Amaro caso della Baronessa Carini by Daniele d’Anza, Una spia del regime by Alberto Negrin, Martin Eden by Giacomo Battiato, Io e il Duce (Mussolini and I) a film for television directed by Alberto Negrin with an international cast of great actors like Anthony Hopkins and Susan Sarandon, and …e la vita continua by Dino Risi. In 1990-92, in the two popular television series La Piovra 5 and 6 (The Octopus 5 and 6) directed by Luigi Pirelli he meets with great success. In cinema he acted in various action movies like Milano violenta (Bloody Payroll) by Mario Caiano, La polizia è sconfitta (Elimination Force) by Domenico Paolella, and Speed Cross by Stelvio Massi. With the film Il giocattolo by Giuliano Montaldo he won his first award (Nastro d’Argento) followed by a repeat success, two years later, with Tre fratelli (Three Brothers) by Francesco Rosi acting alongside Michele Placido and Philippe Noiret. Besides this he worked under the direction of Luigi Magni in Arrivano i bersaglieri and with Nanni Loy in Café Express, Marco Tullio Giordano in La caduta degli angeli ribelli., Carlo Lizzani in La casa del tappeto giallo, Jean Jacques Beneix in La lune dans le caniveaux, Patrice Chéreaux in L’homme blessé, Alfredo Arias in Fuegos, Robert Enrico and Richard T. Heffron in La Revolution Francaise, Daniel Schmid in Jenatsch and Zwischensaison, Marco Bellocchio in La condanna (The Conviction), Werner Herzog in Cerro Torre Scream of Stone, Amos Gitai in Golem, l’esprit de l’exil. From 1984 to 1988 he played the role of Arjuna in the grand and legendary The Mahabharata directed by Peter Brook and adapted by Jean-Claude Carrière. This opera was first shown in the theatre as a nine-hour play (French and English editions, an international cast, a great success with the critics and the public, four years tourneé around the world) and then later made into a three-hour version for the television and cinema. The three-hour version was presented as a “special event” at the International Film Festival of Venice in 1989. His last theatrical works were – George Büchner’s Woyzeck directed by Mario Martone and Arthur Schnitzler’s Scena Madre directed by Alain Maratrat alongside his wife Cecilia Sacchi.
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