Bene, who had suffered from serious heart problems, died Saturday at his home 
in Rome, news reports said. 

Bene was born in 1937 in the southern town of Campi Salentina and made his 
stage debut in Rome in 1959, in ``Caligula'' by French writer Albert Camus. 
Bene went on to direct himself in many works, often reinterpreting classics 
such as Shakespeare's ``Hamlet.'' 

In the 1960s and 1970s, he delved into film, appearing in director Pier Paolo 
Pasolini's ``Oedipus Rex'' in 1967. Bene's own film the following year, ``Our 
Lady of the Turks,'' won a prize at the Venice Film Festival. 

He returned to theater in the mid-1970s, later directing performances in 
which he read poems to classical music. 

His health had suffered in recent years, and he was less involved in 
production. 

Writer and actor Dario Fo, who won the 1997 Nobel Prize for literature, 
described Bene as ``a great provocateur.'' 

Bene was always more tied to the avant-garde in other European nations than 
in his home country, Fo said. 

``He was always an outsider, someone on the sidelines,'' Fo said. 

Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi sent a letter of condolence to Bene's 
family, describing the actor as an ``extraordinary dramatic talent'' who was 
``provocative and constantly searching for new modes of expression.'' 

Bene is survived by his wife, Raffaella Baracchi, and a daughter, Salome, the 
daily newspaper La Stampa said. Bene had requested that there be no public 
funeral ceremony.