Vittorio Gassman

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Vittorio Gassman Template:Post-nominals (Template:IPA; born Gassmann; 1 September 1922 – 29 June 2000),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> popularly known as Template:Lang, was an Italian actor, director, and screenwriter.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

He is considered one of the greatest Italian actors, whose career includes both important productions as well as dozens of divertissements.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Early life

Gassman was born in Genoa to a German father, Heinrich Gassmann (an engineer from Karlsruhe), and an Italian Jewish mother, Luisa Ambron, born in Pisa.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> While still very young, he moved to Rome, where he studied at the Silvio D'Amico National Academy of Dramatic Arts.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Career

Gassman's stage debut was in Milan, in 1942, with Alda Borelli in Niccodemi's La Nemica.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> He then moved to Rome and acted at the Teatro Eliseo joining Tino Carraro and Ernesto Calindri in a stage company that remained famous for some time; with them he acted in a range of plays from bourgeois comedy to sophisticated intellectual theatre.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1946, he made his film debut in Preludio d'amore, while only one year later he appeared in five films. In 1948, he played in Bitter Rice.<ref name=":0" />

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 Come vi piace (As You Like It) by Shakespeare and Oreste (by Vittorio Alfieri). He joined the Teatro Nazionale with Tommaso Salvini, Massimo Girotti, Arnoldo Foà to create 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, followed by rare works such as Seneca's Thyestes and Aeschylus's The Persians.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Gassman, Giovanna Ralli and Alberto Lattuada awarded at the 1957 Grolla d'oro
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Vittorio Gassman during the performance of the tragedy Oedipus Rex in 1955

In 1956, Gassman played the title role in a production of Othello. He was so well received by his acting in the television series entitled Template:Ill that "Il Mattatore" became the nickname that accompanied him for the rest of his life.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Gassman's debut in the commedia all'italiana genre was rather accidental, in Mario Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). The Istituto Italiano di Cultura in London describes the film as "considered among the masterpieces of Italian cinema … The careers of both Gassman and Mastroianni were considerably helped by the success of the film, Gassman in particular, since before this point he was not deemed suitable for comedic roles."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Subsequent acclaimed films featuring Gassman include: The Easy Life (1962), The Great War (1962), I mostri (1963), For Love and Gold (1966), Scent of a Woman (1974) and We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974).

He directed Adelchi, a lesser-known work by Alessandro Manzoni. Gassman brought this production to half a million spectators, crossing Italy with his Teatro Popolare Itinerante (a newer edition of the famous Carro di Tespi). His productions have included many of the famous authors and playwrights of the 20th century, with repeated returns to the classics of Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky and the Greek tragicians. He also founded a theatre school in Florence (Bottega Teatrale di Firenze), which educated many of the more talented actors of the current generation of Italian thespians.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In cinema, he worked frequently both in Italy and abroad. He met and fell in love with American actress Shelley Winters while she was touring Europe with fiancé Farley Granger. When Winters was forced to return to Hollywood to fulfil contractual obligations, he followed her there and married her. With his natural charisma and his fluency in English, he scored a number of roles in Hollywood, including Rhapsody with Elizabeth Taylor and The Glass Wall before returning to Italy and the theatre.

In the 1990s he took part in the popular Italian Rai 3 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 wool sweater or cookies ingredients.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He rendered them with the same professional skill that made him famous while reciting Dante's Divine Comedy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1994, Gassman voiced Mufasa in the Italian dubbed version of The Lion King.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Gassman's voice was redubbed in several of his films by historical Italian actors and dubbers which include Emilio Cigoli, Sandro Ruffini, Gualtiero De Angelis, Stefano Sibaldi, Enrico Maria Salerno and Pino Locchi.

Personal life

Gassman married three times, all to actresses: Nora Ricci (with whom he had Paola, an actress and wife of Ugo Pagliai);<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Shelley Winters (mother of his daughter Vittoria);<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Template:Interlanguage link (mother of his son Jacopo).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

While rehearsing Hamlet, he began an affair with Anna Maria Ferrero, his 16-year-old Ophelia, which ended his marriage to Winters.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He and Winters were forced to work together on Mambo just as their marriage was unraveling, providing fodder for tabloids all over the world.

From 1964 to 1968 he was the partner of French actress Juliette Mayniel (mother of his son Alessandro, also an actor).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Through Alessandro, he is the grandfather of singer-songwriter Leo Gassmann.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Gassman suffered from bipolar disorder.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Death

On 29 June 2000, Gassman died of a heart attack in his sleep at his home in Rome at the age of 77.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He was buried at Campo Verano.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Filmography

File:Riso Amaro 1949 vittorio gassman.JPG
Vittorio Gassman in Bitter Rice (1948)
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Gassman in War and Peace (1956)
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Memmo Carotenuto and Gassman in Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958)
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Gassman, Silvana Mangano and Alberto Sordi in The Great War (1959)
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Catherine Spaak and Gassman in Il Sorpasso (1962)
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Gassman and Ugo Tognazzi in I Mostri (1963)
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Gassman and Luigi Vannucchi in Pleasant Nights (1965)
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Gassman in L'armata Brancaleone (1965)
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Gassman and Adrienne La Russa in The Black Sheep (1968)
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Gassman, Nino Manfredi and Stefano Satta Flores in We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974)

Actor

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Director

Dubbing roles

Animation

Live action

Writer

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

Audiobooks

  • 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.

References

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