Italian actor. His parents, Cesare and Paola Ranucci, were opera singers and Renato was born just when they were performing a show, in the backstage of a theater in Turin, Italy. It had to be the place where he was going to spend his entire life. When he was only a boy, he began singing for the "coro delle voci bianche" of San Pietro, in Rome, and at the age of 14 he started to play drums in several ballrooms around Rome. Some time later, he joined the Di Fiorenza Sisters as an actor, dancer and clown and in 1934 he got his first important role in the operetta "Al Cavallino bianco". In 1935, he joined Elena Gray for his first foreign tour in Africa. In 1941 he decided to create his own theater company and started developing his particular kind of humor that in the following years will make him famous as the man who invented the "non-sense", for instance when he said things like, "two friends that didn't know each other". He was very small, being only 5'2" tall, and during his performances he accentuated that, wearing very big and odd coats. It got him the nickname of "Piccoletto". The coat he preferred most had a large pocket on its back. During that time he created some of the characters that became famous in Italy, such as "Napoleone" and "Il Corazziere" (a parody on his size, since the Coraziere is a military division that employs only soldiers over 6 feet tall). In 1942 he took part in his first movie, "Pazzo d'amore", where he developed and continued his special sort of humour. Among the numberless movies he took part in, there is one that won "La Palma d'oro" in Cannes, France. It was, "Il Cappotto". Other movies were, "Il segreto di Santa Vittoria", also starring Anna Magnani and Anthony Quinn, "I sette colli di Roma", with Mario Lanza, "Questi fantasmi", with Eduardo De Filippo, "Figaro qua, Figaro là", with Totò, "Arrivederci Roma", "Bellezze in bicicletta", and many others. He also had a part in "Jesus of Nazareth", by Zeffirelli, in 1978. After the second World, he became famous also for his leading roles in some musicals by Garinei & Giovannini. They were the first to create the "musical" in Italy with movies such as "Attanasio cavallo vanesio", in 1952. "Alvaro piuttosto corsaro", in 1955, "Un paio d'ali", in 1957, "Rascelinaria" in 1958, "Enrico '61", in 1961, that was put on stage for a whole year at the Piccadilly Theater in London, in 1962, "Il giorno della tartaruga", in 1965, and "Alleluja, brava gente", in 1970. Not only was he a comic, he was also a dancer, singer and songwriter. His most famous song, "Arrivederci Roma" was really a hit and it is still among the three most famous Italian songs of all time. He also wrote several songs that became famous all over the world, such as "Venticello de Roma", "Con un po' di fantasia", "Vogliamoci tanto bene", "Romantica" and "Te voglio bene tanto tanto". Nel 1956, he gave life to the very first live Saturday night show on television in Italy, with "Rascel la nuit" in 1956 and "Stasera a Rascel City" in 1958. His role as a priest who tries to solve crimes in a television series titled "Father Brown", in 1970, was one of the most remarcable television successes of that period. He died of a long illness that lead him to a gradual loss of conscience.