Admired performer, playwright and politician who would not be silenced

Franca Rame, who has died aged 84, was one of Italy's most admired stage performers and playwrights.

A leftwing militant, she was elected to the Italian senate in 2006 but resigned within two years, saying the assembly was an icebox of feelings.

Rame was best known as the wife and professional partner of the actor-playwright Dario Fo. In spite of their ups and downs, which they themselves pilloried in a one-act play, Coppia Aperta (The Open Couple, 1982), she remained at his side on stage and off.

When Fo received the Nobel prize for literature in 1997, he called Rame his muse and shared the medal with her.

Rame was born in Parabiago, Milan. Her mother, Emilia, was a teacher and a strict Catholic; her father, Domenico, was an actor and socialist militant. At 18, she began to work in theatre in Milan. After a few years, she found herself in the same company as Fo. They married in 1954 and their son, Jacopo, was born the following year. Rame and Fo formed a company, and she appeared in several films.

In 1973 Rame was kidnapped and raped by fascists. Ten years later, she used the experience for a monologue, Lo Stupro (The Rape). In 1987 she announced on TV that she and Fo were separating, but they patched up their relationship.

In 2006, Rame surprised everyone by standing for parliament. She was elected to the senate for the Italia dei Valori (Italy of Values) party of Berlusconi’s enemy, the former magistrate Antonio Di Pietro.

In 2009, Fo published a biography of Rame and she acted with him in a play about Aurelius Ambrosius, the patron saint of Milan, to whom they also dedicated a handsome book. They had been due to appear in a new collaboration, Una Callas Dimenticata (A Forgotten Callas), at the Arena in Verona this summer.

She is survived by Dario and Jacopo.