Vittorio Gassman

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Vittorio Gassman
Born 1 September 1922(1922-09-01)
Genoa, Liguria, Italy
Died 29 June 2000(2000-06-29) (aged 77)
Rome, Italy
Occupation actor, director, screenwriter
Years active 1945–1999
Spouse Nora Ricci (1944–1952)
Shelley Winters (1952–1954)
Diletta D'Andrea (1972–2000)
Awards Best Actor Award (Cannes Film Festival)
1975 Profumo di donna

Vittorio Gassman Knight Grand Cross OMRI (born Gassmann; 1 September 1922 – 29 June 2000), popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian theatre and film actor and director. He is considered one of the greatest Italian actors and is commonly recalled as an extremely professional, versatile, magnetic interpreter, whose long career includes both important productions as well as dozens of divertissements (which made him greatly popular).

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life

He was born in Genoa to a German father, Heinrich Gassmann, and a Pisan Jewish mother, Luisa Ambron. While still very young he moved to Rome, where he attended the studies at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica.

[edit] Career

Gassman's debut was in Milan, in 1942, with Alda Borelli in Niccodemi's Nemica (theatre), he then moved to Rome and the Teatro Eliseo joining Tino Carraro and Ernesto Calindri in a team that remained famous; with them he acted in a range of plays from bourgeois comedy to the sophisticated intellectual theatre. In 1946, he made his film debut in Preludio d'amore, the year after he appeared in five films. In 1948 he played in Riso amaro.

It was with Luchino Visconti's company that Gassman achieved his mature successes, together with Paolo Stoppa, Rina Morelli and Paola Borboni. He played Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' Un tram che si chiama desiderio (A Streetcar Named Desire), as well as in As You Like It (by Shakespeare) and Oreste (by Vittorio Alfieri). He joined the Teatro Nazionale with Tommaso Salvini, Massimo Girotti, Arnoldo Foà, for a successful Peer Gynt (by Henrik Ibsen). With Luigi Squarzina in 1952 he co-founded and co-directed the Teatro d'Arte Italiano, producing the first complete version of Hamlet in Italy, then rare works such as Seneca's Thyestes and Aeschylus's The Persians.

In 1956 Gassman played the title role in a production of Othello. A little later, in the television series entitled Il Mattatore (Spotlight Chaser) he obtained unexpected success and "Il Mattatore" became the nickname that accompanied him for the rest of his life. Gassman's debut in the commedia all'italiana genre was rather accidental, in Mario Monicelli's I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street, 1958). Famous movies featuring Gassman include: Il sorpasso (1962), La Grande Guerra (1962), I mostri (1963), L'Armata Brancaleone (1966), Profumo di donna (1974) and C'eravamo tanto amati (1974).

He directed Adelchi, one of the lesser-known works by Alessandro Manzoni. He toured his production to half a million spectators, crossing Italy with his Teatro Popolare Itinerante (a newer edition of the famous Carro di Tespi). His productions include most of the famous authors of the 20th century, with repeated returns to the classics of Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky and the Greeks. He also founded a theatre school in Florence, which formed many of the more talented actors of the current generations.[citation needed]

In cinema, he worked frequently both in Italy and abroad. With his natural charisma and his fluency in English he scored a number of roles in Hollywood; it was during an early stint there that he met and married Shelley Winters, whom he divorced to return to Italy. Also voiced Mufasa in the Italian version of Lion King, TheThe Lion King.

[edit] Personal life

Gassman married three actresses: Nora Ricci (with whom he had Paola, an actress and wife of Ugo Pagliai); Shelley Winters (mother of his daughter Vittoria); and Diletta D'Andrea, by whom he had a son, Jacopo. In addition, he had an affair with actress Juliette Maynel (who gave him Alessandro, also an actor). In the 1990s he took part in the popular TV show Tunnel in which he very formally and "seriously"' recited documents such as utility bills, yellow pages and similar trivial texts, such as washing instructions for a woollen sweater or cookies ingredients. He rendered them with the same professional skill that made him famous while reciting Dante's Divine Comedy.[citation needed]

In 2000, he died of a heart attack at his home in Rome, aged 77.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Actor

[edit] Director

  • Kean (1956)
  • L'Alibi (1969)
  • Senza famiglia, nullatenenti cercano affetto (1972)
  • Di padre in figlio (1982)

[edit] Writer

  • Luca de' Numeri. Novel, in 1947 won the Fogazzaro prize, publicated in 1965 (ed. Lerici)
  • Un grande avvenire dietro le spalle. Milano, (1981). Longanesi & C.
  • Vocalizzi. Milano, (1988). Longanesi & C.
  • Memorie del sottoscala. Milano, (1990). Longanesi & C.

[edit] Disks

  • CL 0426 – Antologia moderna – Ungaretti, Cardarelli, Palazzeschi, Montale, Quasimodo.
  • CL 0401 – Dante Alighieri – Inferno canto quinto.
  • CL 0437 – Dante Alighieri – Inferno canto XXVI.
  • CL 0402 – Dante Alighieri – Paradiso canto XXXIII.
  • CL 0457 – Elogio Olimpico – Poesie sportive.
  • CL 0459 – Eschilo – Coefore – with Valentina Fortunato and Maria Fabbri.
  • CL 0438 – Foscolo – Sepolcri.
  • CL 0439 – Leopardi – Poesie
  • CL 0440 – Leopardi – Poesie.
  • CL 0458 – Manzoni – Adelchi, with Carlo D'Angelo.
  • CL 0414 – Manzoni – Promessi sposi.
  • CL 0416 – Manzoni – Il cinque maggio.
  • CL 0441 – Mistici del '200.
  • CL 0470 – Pascarella – Sonetti.
  • CL 0417 – Pascoli – Poesie.
  • CL 0420 – Saba – Poesie.
  • CL 0415 – Shakespeare – Amleto.
  • CL 0427 – Sonetti attraverso i secoli.
  • CL 0443 – Gassman nel Mattatore prose varie.
  • CL 0444 – Gassman nel Mattatore prose varie.
  • CLV 0604 – Shakespeare – Otello.
  • CLV 0607 – Irma la dolce.
  • CLV 0609 – Gassman – Il Mattatore prose varie.

[edit] External links

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