Pippo Franco (pseudonym of Francesco Pippo; Rome, 2 September 1940) is an Italian actor, comedian, television presenter, and singer. He made his name first as a musician in the early 1960s, and in the late 1960s began a career in film, starring in a great number of commedia sexy all'italiana, the "sexy comedy" subgenre of Italian comedy. In the 1970s he expanded into television, acting in TV movies and presenting variety shows. His type of comedy borrows heavily from cabaret. Throughout his career he continued to sing, appearing many times at the Sanremo Festival. He has made children's music as well, and has co-written three books on (linguistic) humor.
Franco's first role in a box office hit was 1969's "The Conspirators", directed by Luigi Magni, and starring an exceptional cast of actors including Franco, Nino Manfredi, and Claudia Cardinale. In the 1970s and 1980s he starred in a large number of Italian comedies, many of them "erotic comedies", such as the 1972 Mariano Laurenti production "Ubalda, All Naked and Warm", a semi-medieval erotic spoof (a "decamerotic" film), in which Franco starred alongside Edwige Fenech. The success of Ubalda was followed by another successful movie with Franco and Edwige, Sergio Martino's "Giovannona Long-Thigh" (1973).
Franco again worked with Martino and Fenech in 1980, in "Sugar, Honey and Pepper", and in 1982, in "Don't Play with Tigers", though Franco and Fenech did not share any scenes in these Anthologies. In 1972, he had a part in Billy Wilder's Italian/American comedy "Avanti!", alongside Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills. He directed his first movie in 1981, "La gatta da pelare", for which he also wrote the score and the script. Franco began a career in television in 1971 with "Riuscirà il cav. papà Ubu?", directed by Vito Molinari and Giuseppe Recchia, and from then on played in a number of made-for-television movies. Franco has appeared on numerous Italian TV shows as comic and as presenter. In 1980, he presented the weekly television show of the drawing of the Italian lottery, with Laura Troschel (then his wife) and Claudio Cecchetto.
Franco began singing and playing guitar at the end of the 1950s, and started writing songs with surreal lyrics. One of his groups, The Penguins, made its debut in 1960 in the musicarello by Mario Mattoli for "Appuntamento a Ischia". In 1968 he scored a minor hit with the single "Vedendo una foto di Bob Dylan", which made fun of the gap between beatniks and their parents. As a singer he recorded more than a dozen albums, including "Cara Kiri" (1971), "Bededè" (1975), "Al cabaret" (1977), "Praticamente, no?" (1978), "Pippo nasone" and "Vietato ai minori" (1981). Beginning in the late 1970s, Franco began playing and composing children's music.