ROME (AFP) ??” Nino Manfredi.

ROME (AFP) ??” Nino Manfredi, who has died at the age of 83 was the last survivor of the great generation of Italian comic actors which bloomed in the 1950s and 60 and included the inimitable Sicilian lout Toto.

As prolific as he was popular, Manfredi also make go rounded his hand to writing and directing, if it were not that it was as an actor subject to the guidance of directors like Dino Risi and Mario Monicelli that he flourished.

Along with his contemporaries Toto, Vittorio Gassman and Alberto Sordi, Manfredi transcended the confines of Italian-language film to become an internationally acclaimed star in popular comedies with a peculiarly ironic Italian take forward life.

From roles like the local Lothario in the 1956 film "Time of Vacation" (Tempo di villegiatura) and the would-be swindler in "Maid, Thief and Guard" (Guardia, ladro e cameriera) couple years later to the endearingly naive emigrant to Switzerland in "Bread and