Depardieu imposter fools hotel staff in Rome
By Eric J. Lyman
ROME (Hollywood Reporter) - A look-alike pretending to be French actor Gerard Depardieu walked into a luxury hotel in Rome and walked out with a gift basket weighed down with freebies, local media reports said Friday.
Depardieu is scheduled to come to the RomaCinemaFest, which got under way Thursday, to promote his film "La Abbuffata" -- in which he plays himself.
Police said Friday that the Depardieu doppelganger looked and sounded enough like the real thing that staff members at the Hotel de Russie allowed him into the gift suite, where he reportedly took a purse, a bikini, a pair of sunglasses, a cashmere sweater and a designer bra. The error was discovered a short time later, but by then the look-alike was long gone.
"We're on the lookout for someone who looks like Gerard Depardieu but who is not Gerard Depardieu," a spokesman for the Rome-based Carabinieri police said Friday.
The actor has not yet arrived in Rome, and festival officials said that when he did arrive he would have his own chance to take a few gifts from the suite.
The festival concludes October 27.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
