Cervi was best known for his role of Giuseppe Bottazzi ("Peppone"), the Communist mayor in the Don Camillo movies of the 1950s and the 1960s.
He acted in Don Camillo sequels, John Huston's Beat the Devil, Luigi Comencini's Bread, Love and Jealousy, and international films such as Woman of Straw, and Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather as Signor Vitelli, father of Michael Corleone's love Apollonia.
Don Quixote | Don Giovanni | Don Cherry | Don | Don (honorific) | Don Cheadle | Rostov-on-Don | Don Williams | Don Juan | Don Knotts | Don Imus | Don Carlos | Don Rickles | Don Omar | Don Henley | Salesians of Don Bosco | Don Johnson | Don Drysdale | Don Pasquale | Don Messick | Don Bluth | Don King (boxing promoter) | Don King | Don Shula | Don LaFontaine | Don Cherry (jazz) | Don Burrows | Don't Look Now | Don Siegel | Don McLean |
This town is most famous, however, for being the antebellum set for one of Italy's most loved film series: that of Peppone and Don Camillo, played by Gino Cervi and Fernandel and based on the books by Giovannino Guareschi.