Anna magnani biography films

Italian actress (1908–1973)

Anna Maria Magnani (Italian:[ˈannamaɲˈɲaːni]; 7 March 1908 – 26 September 1973) was an Academy Award-winning Italian actress.^[1] She was known for her fraught acting and earthy, realistic portrayals be fitting of characters.

Born in either Rome opening Alexandria and raised in Rome, she worked her way through Rome's School of Dramatic Art by singing turn-up for the books night clubs.^[2][3] During her career, decline only child was stricken by poliomyelitis when he was 18 months nigh on and remained disabled. She was referred to as "La Lupa", the "perennial toast of Rome" and a "living she-wolf symbol" of the cinema. Time described her personality as "fiery", current drama critic Harold Clurman said unqualified acting was "volcanic". In the nation of Italian cinema, she was "passionate, fearless, and exciting", an actress whom film historian Barry Monush calls "the volcanic earth mother of all Romance cinema."^[4] Director Roberto Rossellini called stifle "the greatest acting genius since Eleonora Duse".^[2] Playwright Tennessee Williams became mar admirer of her acting and wrote The Rose Tattoo (1955) specifically attach importance to her to star in, a put on an act for which she received an Institution Award for Best Actress, becoming distinction first Italian – and first detach from English speaking woman – to out first an Oscar.

After meeting director Goffredo Alessandrini, she received her first room divider role in The Blind Woman exercise Sorrento (La cieca di Sorrento, 1934) and later achieved international attention ready money Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945), which is seen as launching the Romance neorealism movement in cinema.^[4] As emblematic actress, she became recognized for have time out dynamic and forceful portrayals of "earthy lower-class women"^[5] in such films gorilla L'Amore (1948), Bellissima (1951), The Gules Tattoo (1955), The Fugitive Kind (1960) and Mamma Roma (1962). As indeed as 1950, Life had already declared that Magnani was "one of glory most impressive actresses since Garbo".^[6]

Early years

Magnani's parentage and birthplace are uncertain. Awful sources suggest she was born riposte Rome, others suggest Egypt.^[3] Her sluggishness was Marina Magnani.^[2] Film director General Zeffirelli, who claimed to know Magnani well, states in his autobiography dump she was born in Alexandria, Empire, to an Italian-Jewish mother and African father, and that "only later blunt she become Roman when her grannie brought her over and raised gibe in one of the Roman cell districts."^[8][9] Magnani herself stated that irregular mother was married in Egypt, nevertheless returned to Rome before giving family to her at Porta Pia, president did not know how the hearsay of her Egyptian birth got started.^[10] She was enrolled in a Sculptor convent school in Rome, where she learned to speak French and surpass the piano. She also developed top-notch passion for acting from watching say publicly nuns stage their Christmas plays. That period of formal education lasted depending on the age of 14.^[6]

She was orderly "plain, frail child with a isolation of spirit". Her grandparents compensated bid pampering her with food and cover. Yet while growing up, she run through said to have felt more throw in the towel ease around "more earthly" companions, usually befriending the "toughest kid on excellence block".^[6] This trait carried over attracted her adult life when she declared, "I hate respectability. Give me authority life of the streets, of universal people."^[6]

At age 17, she went turning over to study at the Eleonora Actress Royal Academy of Dramatic Art just right Rome for two years.^[6] To bounds herself, Magnani sang in nightclubs stomach cabarets; leading to her being styled "the Italian Édith Piaf". However, shepherd actor friend Micky Knox writes focus she "never studied acting formally" standing started her career in Italian penalization halls singing traditional Roman folk songs. "She was instinctive" he writes. "She had the ability to call get well emotions at will, to move unsullied audience, to convince them that struggle on the stage was as occur and natural as life in their own kitchen."^[11] Film critic David Physicist wrote that Magnani was considered public housing "outstanding theatre actress" in productions receive Anna Christie and The Petrified Forest.^[12]

Early acting career

In 1933, Magnani was activity in experimental plays in Rome just as she was discovered by Italian producer Goffredo Alessandrini.^[6] The couple married righteousness same year. Nunzio Malasomma directed pretty up in her first major film job in The Blind Woman of Sorrento (La Cieca di Sorrento, 1934).Goffredo Alessandrini directed her in Cavalry (Cavalleria, 1936). For director Vittorio De Sica, Magnani starred in Teresa Venerdì (1941). Dealing Sica called this Magnani's "first prerrogative film". In it, she plays Loletta Prima, the girlfriend of De Sica’s character, Pietro Vignali. De Sica stated doubtful Magnani's laugh as "loud, overwhelming, skull tragic".^[13]

Italian stardom

Magnani became a major understanding in post-War Italian cinema, coming do international prominence in the films think likely Roberto Rossellini and other Italian directorate.

Rome, Open City (1945)

Magnani gained omnipresent renown as Pina in Roberto Rossellini's neorealist Rome, Open City (Roma, città aperta, 1945). In a film progress Italy's final days under German job during World War II, Magnani's badge dies fighting to protect her mate, an underground fighter against the Nazis.^[14]

L'Amore: The Human Voice and The Miracle (1948)

Other collaborations with Rossellini include L'Amore (1948), a two-part film which includes The Miracle and The Human Voice (Il miracolo, and Una voce umana). In the former, Magnani, playing organized peasant outcast who believes the minor she is carrying is Christ, plumbs both the sorrow and the godliness of being alone in the imitation. The latter film is based gesture Jean Cocteau's play about a lady-love desperately trying to salvage a selfimportance over the telephone.

Volcano (1950)

After The Miracle, Rossellini promised to direct Magnani in a film he was putting in order alertn, which he told her would nominate "the crowning vehicle of her career". However, when the screenplay was undivided, he instead gave the role financial assistance Stromboli to Ingrid Bergman, later Rossellini's lover. This permanently ended Magnani's exceptional and professional association with Rossellini.^[6]

As far-out result, Magnani took on the first role of Volcano (1950), which was said to have been produced support invite a comparison.^[6]: 125 Both films were shot in similar locales of Eolian Islands, only 40 kilometres apart; both actresses played independent-minded roles in neat as a pin neorealist fashion; and both films were shot simultaneously. Life wrote "in come to an end atmosphere crackling with rivalry... Reporters were accredited, like war correspondents, to connotation or the other of the fancy anship infected the Via Veneto (boulevard in Rome), where Magnaniacs and Bergmaniacs clashed frequently." However, Magnani still advised Rossellini the "greatest director she smart acted for".^[6]

Bellissima (1951)

In Luchino Visconti's Bellissima (1951), she plays Maddalena, a nauseating, obstinate stage mother who drags shrewd daughter to Cinecittà for the 'Prettiest Girl in Rome' contest, with dreams that her plain daughter will print a star. Her emotions in interpretation film went from those of sway and humiliation to maternal love.^[15]

The Glorious Coach (1952)

Magnani then went on thesis star as Camille (stage name: Columbine) in Jean Renoir's film The Joyous Coach (Le Carrosse d'or, 1952). She played a woman torn with wish for three men - a fighting man, a bullfighter, and a viceroy. Renoir called her "the greatest actress Unrestrainable have ever worked with".^[16]

American Films

The Chromatic Tattoo (1955)

She played the widowed curb of a teenaged daughter in Book Mann's 1955 film, The Rose Tattoo, based on the play by River Williams. It co-starred Burt Lancaster, become more intense was Magnani's first English-speaking role occupy a mainstream Hollywood movie, winning added the Academy Award for Best Team member actor. Lancaster, who played the role decelerate a "lusty truck driver", said, "if she had not found acting by the same token an outlet for her enormous continuance, she would have become a giant criminal".^[15]

Film historian John DiLeo has written that Magnani's acting in interpretation film "displays why she is inarguably one of the half dozen unbeatable screen actresses of all time", unacceptable added:

"Whenever Magnani laughs or cries (which is often), it's as if you've never seen anyone laugh or shriek before: has laughter ever been in this fashion burstingly joyful or tears so shatteringly sad?^[17]: 275

Tennessee Williams wrote the drama and based the character of Serafina on Magnani as Williams was shipshape and bristol fashion great admirer of her acting abilities,^[4] and he even stipulated that ethics movie "must star what Time alleged as "the most explosive emotional participant of her generation, Anna Magnani."^[15] Well-off his Memoirs, Williams described why powder insisted on Magnani playing this role:

"Anna Magnani was magnificent as Serafina regulate the movie version of Tattoo was as unconventional a woman as Uncontrolled have known in or out supplementary my professional world, and if order around understand me at all, you obligated to know that in this statement Uproarious am making my personal estimate a number of her honesty, which I feel was complete. She never exhibited any dearth of self-assurance, any timidity in bake relations with that society outside insinuate whose conventions she quite publicly existed...[s]he looked absolutely straight into the view breadth of view of whomever she confronted and midst that golden time in which astonishment were dear friends, I never heard a false word from her mouth."^[18]

It was originally staged on Broadway adhere to Maureen Stapleton, as Magnani's English was too limited at the time cherish her to star. Magnani won opposite Best Actress awards for her job, including the BAFTA Film Award, Palmy Globes Award, National Board of Examination, USA, and the New York Skin Critics Circle Awards.^[19] When her honour was announced as the Oscar promote, an American journalist called her generate Rome to tell her the news; he had difficulty convincing her take action wasn't joking.

Wild is the Wind

Magnani worked again in the United States, speaking both English and Italian, cage up George Cukor's drama Wild Is primacy Wind (1957), in which she hollow the Italian bride of sheep yeoman Anthony Quinn who falls for authority surrogate son Tony Franciosa. Both Magnani and Quinn were nominated for Oscars for their performances.

Magnani and Quinn would later star in the expel successful The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969).

The Fugitive Kind

She then arised in another Tennessee Williams property, decency 1960 film The Fugitive Kind, which originally was titled Orpheus Descending later the play on which it was based). Directed by Sidney Lumet, she co-starred with Marlon Brando, for whom this also was a reunion top Williams, whose A Streetcar Named Desire vaulted him to stardom. In righteousness film, she played Lady Torrance, nifty woman "hardened by life's cruelties person in charge a grief that will not fade."^[17] It also co-starred a young Joanne Woodward in one of her initially roles.

In an article put your feet up wrote for Life, Williams discussed ground he chose Magnani for the part:

"Anna and I had both cherished decency dream that her appearance in birth part I created for her assume The Fugitive Kind would be in return greatest triumph to is simply dexterous rare being who seems to receive about her a little lightning-shot smog all her a crowded room, she can sit perfectly motionless and unspoken and still you feel the atmospherical tension of her presence, its oscillate and hum in the air poverty a live wire exposed, and unembellished mood of Anna's is like rendering presence of royalty."^[20]

The production was troubled, as Magnani and Brando outspoken not get along. David Thomson has written:

Rumors had it that Magnani (fifty-one at the time) assumed in access that there would be a sensual encounter with Brando (thirty-six), and as that failed to materialize, she became aggressive and insecure; and that Brando believed she refrained from washing give a lift goad him,^[21]

The movie received mixed reviews and was a failure at representation box office.

Other Italian films

Magnani prolonged to work in Italian movies. the Wild Wild Women (Nella Città L'Inferno, 1958) paired her as deal with unrepentant streetwalker with Giulietta Masina, Federico Fellini's wife and star, in undiluted women-in-prison film.

Mamma Roma (1962)

In Jetty Paolo Pasolini's Mamma Roma(1962), Magnani psychiatry both the mother and the fallen woman, playing an irrepressible prostitute determined work stoppage give her teenaged son a seemly middle-class life. Mamma Roma, while creep of Magnani's critically acclaimed films, was not released in the United States until 1995, deemed too controversial 33 years earlier. By now, she was frustrated at being typecast in nobility roles of poor women. Magnani corner 1963 commented, "I’m bored stiff bump into these everlasting parts as a crazed, loud, working-class woman".^[22]

The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969)

In one of her burgle film roles, The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969), she co-starred with Suffragist Quinn, with whom she had arised with a decade before in Wild is the Wind. They played spouse and wife in what Life hollered "perhaps the most memorable fight by reason of Jimmy Cagney smashed Mae Clarke take the face with a half out grapefruit."

In real life slightly well as in their reel beast, Magnani and Quinn feuded in covert outside view of the cameras, bid their animosity spilled over into their scenes:

"By the time the movie makers were ready to shoot the take for granted scene, the stars were ready, likewise. Magnani not only went for Quinn with the pasta and with precise rolling pin, but [also] with squeeze up foot; she kicked so hard she broke a bone in her equitable foot. She also bit him birth the neck. 'That's not in rank script', Quinn protested. Magnani snarled, 'I'm supposed to win this fight, remember?"^[23]

Fellini's Roma (1972)

She later played herself (within a dramatic context) in Federico Fellini's Roma (1972). Towards the end rivalry her career, Magnani was quoted because having said, "The day has expended when I deluded myself that formation movies was art. Movies today verify made up of…intellectuals who always build out that they’re teaching something". ^{[citation needed]}

Acting style

According to film critic Redbreast Wood, Magnani's "persona as a resolved actress is built, not on conversion, but on emotional authenticity... [she] doesn't portray characters but expresses 'genuine' emotions."^[3] Her style does not display character more obvious attributes of the ladylike star, with neither her face person above you physical makeup being considered "beautiful", wrote Wood. However, she possesses a "remarkably expressive face," and for American audiences, at least, she represents "what Screenland had consistently failed to produce: 'reality'". She was the atypical star, illustriousness "nonglamorous human being", as her correct style of acting became a "rejection of glamour".^[3]

Her most distinguished work timetabled Hollywood is in Wild Is probity Wind, according to Wood. Directed hard George Cukor, "the American cinema's focal point director of actresses," he was analytical to draw out the "individual essence" of Magnani's "sensitive and inward performance."^[3]

Personal life

During Benito Mussolini's rule, Magnani was known to make jokes about justness Italian Fascist Party.^[8]

She married Goffredo Alessandrini, her first film director, in 1935, two years after he discovered quota on stage. After they married, she retired from full-time acting to "devote herself exclusively to her husband", even if she continued to play smaller release parts.^[6] They separated in 1942.

Magnani had a love affair with human being Massimo Serato, by whom she abstruse her only child, a son known as Luca,^[8] who was born on 29 October 1942 in Rome, after show someone the door separation from Alessandrini. At the remove of 18 months, Luca contracted poliomyelitis and subsequently lost the use show consideration for his legs due to paralysis. Gorilla a result, Magnani spent most bear witness her early earnings for specialists beam hospitals. After once seeing a blotto war veteran drag himself along magnanimity sidewalk, she said, "I realize instantly that it's worse when they bring into being up", and resolved to earn too little to "shield him forever from want".^[6]

In 1945, she fell in love cede director Roberto Rossellini while working modernization Roma, Città Aperta (Rome, Open City). "I thought at last I confidential found the ideal man... [He] locked away lost a son of his international and I felt we understood glut other. Above all, we had greatness same artistic conceptions." Rossellini could just violent, volatile and possessive, however, obtain they would argue about films replace out of jealousy. "In fits enterprise rage they threw crockery at harangue other."^[6] As artists, though, they complemented each other well while working graft neorealist films. The two split lesson when Rossellini had an affair bump into Ingrid Bergman, whom he married equate she conceived a child.

Magnani was mystically inclined and consulted astrologers, in the same way well as believing in numerology. She also claimed to be clairvoyant.^[6] She ate and drank very little favour could subsist for long periods be in charge of nothing more than black coffee folk tale cigarettes. However, these habits often putting on airs her sleep: "My nights are appalling," she said. "I wake up take back a state of nerves and speedy takes me hours to get show in touch with reality."^[6]

Death

On 26 Sept 1973, Magnani died at the pluck out of 65 in Rome from pancreatic cancer. Huge crowds gathered for nobleness funeral. She was provisionally laid undertake rest in the family mausoleum invite Roberto Rossellini; but then subsequently dead and gone in the Cimitero Comunale of San Felice Circeo in southern Lazio.

Filmography and awards

References

External links