Trivia

Dated Ava Gardner. They met on the set of The Little Hut (1957).

Actor and occasional composer, mainly seen in comedies. His fluent command of the English language helped him obtain roles in English and American films in the 1950's.

Words carved on his gravestone: "Don't worry, it's only sleep I'm behind with".

One son, Simone Annicchiarico (b. August 8th, 1970), lead singer of an Italian rock band. At present (2008-2009) he conducts the TV program "La Valigia Dei Sogni" on the Italian television channel LA7.

Engaged to Patrizia Caselli at time of his death.

Joined the army of the Italian Social Republic of Salò. After the end of the war, he spent a few months in prison for collaborating with the fascist regime.

He was also an accomplished golfer, tennis player and Lombard champion also in the game of bowls , a sport that he abandoned following the fractures of his hands caused by boxing.

The Municipal Theater of Cervia , some Italian streets (in Rome and Andria ) and a small park in Milan near via Cerkovo, in the Bovisasca district, were named after him .

He also swam competitively , winning the GIL- sponsored championships in the 100-meter freestyle .

He was hired in a bank, but fired again because a superior caught him imitating Adolf Hitler standing on his desk; called the head of the office and invited to repeat the sketch in his presence, he was first applauded by him and then dismissed as well as invited to pursue a theatrical career ; he himself recounts the episode in the documentary film "Storia di un altro italiano" (made with Tatti Sanguineti ).

He appeared opposite Anna Magnani in Luchino Visconti's film Bellissima (1951).

In 1951 Luchino Visconti offered him the role of the young lover, in Bellissima; but he continued in the theater, in the musical comedy with Delia Scala in 1956 with Buonanotte Bettina and in 1958 with Il gufo e la gattina, and in 1960 with Sandra Mondaini, Ave Ninchi and Alberto Bonucci with Un mandarino per Teo, all by Garinei and Giovannini, but also in the prose theater, acting in 1961 in The Gay Life, in 1965 with Gianrico Tedeschi in the comedy Luv by Murray Schisgal and, in 1966, with Renato Rascel in La strana coppia by Neil Simon.

In 1970 he was arrested and jailed in Rome on suspicion of cocaine possession and trafficking. After his release and partial acquittal (he was deemed not guilty of the trafficking count and received a lenient sentence for the charge of drug possession for personal use) his career never recovered. The Italian state television was off-limits for him, and all he could aspire to were bit parts in low-key comedies and local television appearances, and on theatre.

He starred in They're a Weird Mob (1966), the last of the Powell and Pressburger films, based on a popular Australian novel by John O'Grady. His then girlfriend, Italian singer and actress Alida Chelli, also appeared in the film; the two married in 1969, and had one son, television presenter Simone Annicchiarico, before their 1972 divorce.

His first job was as a storekeeper at Isotta Fraschini ; in that period he began to practice boxing , becoming the Lombard champion in the featherweight category in 1939.

He abandoned his studies, and he found work in a company as a radio technician , but was immediately fired for having destroyed three valves in an attempt to repair a device.

In 1986 , as part of the celebrations for Florence as the European capital of culture , he resumed his collaboration with his friend Renato Rascel, with whom he interpreted Samuel Beckett 's Endgame directed by Giuseppe Di Leva .

During World War II he joined the Decima Flottiglia MAS, and then the Wehrmacht.

Chiari was an Italian stage and screen actor, mostly in comedy roles.

He was drafted by the Wehrmacht (a detail that emerged only after his death) and sent to the German anti-aircraft squad engaged in northern France in Normandy where he was slightly wounded in the fighting during D-DAY . Captured, he was taken to the American prisoner camp of Coltano (PI) together with other well-known personalities, including Raimondo Vianello , Dario Fo , Enrico Maria Salerno and the Olympian Giuseppe Dordoni , the journalist Enrico Ameri , the orientalist Pio Filippani Ronconi , Ezio Maria Gray, Vincenzo Costa and the deputy Mirko Tremaglia .