Italian actor Alberto Sordi dies

ROME -- Actor Alberto Sordi, who depicted Italy's virtues and vices in more than 160 movies and contributed to making Italian comedy famous worldwide, has died. He was 82.\nSordi died of a heart attack Monday night in his Rome house, publicist Maria Rhule said.\nSordi was born in Rome, and some of the actor's most successful movies are set in the capital, including the 1954 classic "An American in Rome," in which he poked fun at Italy's growing passion for things American.\nHis movies include Federico Fellini's "The White Sheik" in 1952 and, a year later, "I Vitelloni," in which he played one of the title's immature loafers, the weak and effeminate Alberto.\n"Sordi helped us understand post-World War II Italy while making us smile," Culture Minister Giuliano Urbani said.\nBorn to a school teacher and a musician, Sordi grew up in a working-class neighborhood. He went to Milan's dramatic arts academy but was soon kicked out because of the thick Roman accent that would later become his trademark.\nHis movie career began in the late 1930s, but not onscreen: Sordi's first break was as Oliver Hardy's dubbed voice. From there he went on to radio and theater, but it was cinema that shot him to stardom.\nThroughout a career that spanned more than 50 years, Sordi worked with some of the finest Italian directors, including actor-director Vittorio de Sica, Mario Monicelli and Dino Risi, and such stars as Vittorio Gassman and Monica Vitti.\nHe starred in the 1957 "Il Conte Max," ("Count Max"), playing a newspaper vendor who pretends to be a Roman count, and two years later in Monicelli's "The Great War," by some considered one of the best Italian comedies. In 1965, he had a role in another hugely popular comedy, "I Complessi" ("Complexes").\nIn 1961, he starred with David Niven in the World War II comedy "The Best of Enemies."\nSordi also successfully tried his hand at dramatic roles. In 1977's "Un Borghese Piccolo Piccolo," ("An Average Little Man"), he portrayed a middle-aged man who decides to take justice in his hands when his son is killed.\nHis movies often addressed social problems and personal weaknesses like corruption, terrorism and drug addiction.\n"All my films are based on very serious and dramatic subjects, taken from real-life stories," he told Milan daily Corriere della Sera in a 1987 interview.\nSordi also directed a few movies. But his greatest accolades came for acting. He received the David di Donatello, Italy's most important movie award, and a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival in 1995.\nAs reserved in life as he was exuberant on the screen, the elegant Sordi enjoyed collecting antiques and had a passion \nfor opera.\nSordi is survived by his sister Amelia. Funeral arrangements were not immediately available, his publicist said Tuesday.