FACTBOX: Five facts about Italy's interim PM, Franco Marini

(Reuters) - Franco Marini, the 74-year-old speaker of the Italian Senate, was chosen by the president on Wednesday to try to form an interim government, following last week's resignation of centre-left Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

Here are five facts about Marini:

* Born in 1933 in the mountainous central region of Abruzzo, Marini is a respected figure on Italy's centre left. He is a Catholic centrist and a member of the Democratic Party.

* Marini, a straight-talker, was tipped in the past for the post of head of state. As Senate speaker, he often had to rein in rowdy sessions. In last week's confidence vote he ticked off opposition senators who opened champagne and sliced sausages to celebrate Prodi's defeat, telling them: "This is not a bar."

* Marini, often seen with a pipe clenched between his teeth, trained as a lawyer and became a unionist before entering politics. He was secretary-general of Italy's second largest trade union, the CISL, from 1985 to 1991.

* He rose in the early 1990s through the ranks of the Popular Party, an offshoot of the once-dominant Christian Democrats, after Italy's "Bribesville" (Tangentopoli) scandal cleared away an entire generation of politicians.

* Marini was a labor and social security minister in the 1991-1992 government of Giulio Andreotti, the seven-times prime minister whom he defeated in 2006 to become Senate speaker.

(Editing by Robert Woodward)