Massimo Girotti
Encyclopedia
Massimo Girotti was an Italian
film actor whose career spanned seven decades.
Born in Mogliano
, in the province of Macerata
, Girotti developed his athletic physique by swimming and polo. While studying engineering, he attracted the attention of Mario Soldati, who offered him a small part in the film Dora Nelson (1939), but it was not until later, in Alessandro Blasetti
's La corona di ferro (The Iron Crown
) (1941) and Roberto Rossellini
's Un pilota ritorna (A Pilot Returns) (1942), that he began to make an impression as a serious actor. In 1943 came a turning point in his career when Luchino Visconti
cast him opposite the torrid Clara Calamai
in Ossessione
(Obsession), an earlier adaptation of the same novel on which Hollywood
's The Postman Always Rings Twice
is based. The film marked, in a sense, the birth of Italian neo-realism. Some of his notable post-war
films include Caccia tragica (The Tragic Hunt) (1946) by Giuseppe De Santis and In nome della legge (1949) (In the Name of the Law) by Pietro Germi
.
In 1950, he starred opposite Lucia Bosé
in Michelangelo Antonioni
's first full length feature, Cronaca di un amore
(Story of a Love Affair) (1950). In 1953, he played Spartacus
in an Italian epic film known in the US as Sins of Rome and then, returned to work again for Visconti, in Senso
(1954), giving perhaps the finest performance of his career. In the years which followed, he appeared in a large number of mainly Italian films for directors such as Lizzani, Bolognini
, Vittorio Cottafavi, Lattuada
, but it was not until 1968 that he once again played a role worthy of his talents - that of the father in Pasolini
's Teorema
(Theorem) with Terence Stamp
and Silvana Mangano
. Two years later, Pasolini cast him as Creonte opposite Maria Callas
in his Medea (1969). In 1972, he was in Bernardo Bertolucci
's Last Tango in Paris
.
He continued to act in character roles for the next thirty years. Some of the films he appeared in have been notable, including Joseph Losey
's Monsieur Klein
(1976) with Alain Delon
and Jeanne Moreau
, the 1985 television miniseries Quo Vadis?, Roberto Benigni
's Il mostro (The Monster
) (1994).
He died in Rome
of a heart attack after having just completed his last film, Ferzan Ozpetek
's La Finestra di fronte (Facing Windows) (2003).
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
film actor whose career spanned seven decades.
Born in Mogliano
Mogliano
Mogliano is a comune in the Province of Macerata in the Italian region Marche, located about 50 km south of Ancona and about 13 km south of Macerata.-External links:*...
, in the province of Macerata
Province of Macerata
The Province of Macerata is a province in the Marche region of Italy. Its capital is the city of Macerata.It has an area of 2,774 km², and a total population of 301,701 . There are 57 comunes in the province, see Comunes of the Province of Macerata.-External links:*...
, Girotti developed his athletic physique by swimming and polo. While studying engineering, he attracted the attention of Mario Soldati, who offered him a small part in the film Dora Nelson (1939), but it was not until later, in Alessandro Blasetti
Alessandro Blasetti
Alessandro Blasetti was an Italian film director who influenced Italian neorealism with the film Quattro passi fra le nuvole...
's La corona di ferro (The Iron Crown
The Iron Crown
La corona di ferro is a 1941 Italian award winning fantasy film written and directed by Alessandro Blasetti....
) (1941) and Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini
Roberto Rossellini was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Rossellini was one of the directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing films such as Roma città aperta to the movement.-Early life:Born in Rome, Roberto Rossellini lived on the Via Ludovisi, where Benito Mussolini had...
's Un pilota ritorna (A Pilot Returns) (1942), that he began to make an impression as a serious actor. In 1943 came a turning point in his career when Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti
Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice .-Life:...
cast him opposite the torrid Clara Calamai
Clara Calamai
Clara Calamai was an Italian actress.Her debut was in 1938 with Pietro Micca, directed by Aldo Vergano....
in Ossessione
Ossessione
Ossessione is a 1943 film based on the novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain. Luchino Visconti’s first feature film, it is considered by many to be the first Italian neorealist film, though there is some debate about whether such a categorization is accurate.- Historical context...
(Obsession), an earlier adaptation of the same novel on which Hollywood
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
's The Postman Always Rings Twice
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946 film)
The Postman Always Rings Twice is a 1946 drama-film noir based on the 1934 novel of the same name by James M. Cain. This adaptation of the novel is the best known, featuring Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn, Leon Ames, and Audrey Totter...
is based. The film marked, in a sense, the birth of Italian neo-realism. Some of his notable post-war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
films include Caccia tragica (The Tragic Hunt) (1946) by Giuseppe De Santis and In nome della legge (1949) (In the Name of the Law) by Pietro Germi
Pietro Germi
Pietro Germi was an Italian actor, screenwriter, and director. Germi was born in Genoa, Liguria, to a lower-middle class family. He was a messenger and briefly attended nautical school before deciding on a career in acting.He studied acting and directing at Rome's Centro Sperimentale di...
.
In 1950, he starred opposite Lucia Bosé
Lucia Bosé
Lucia Bosè, born Lucia Borloni , is an Italian actress, who was at the height of her fame during the period of Italian Neorealism, the 1940s and 1950s. She is the mother of famous Spanish singer Miguel Bosé.-Life and career:...
in Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...
's first full length feature, Cronaca di un amore
Cronaca di un amore
Cronaca di un amore is a 1950 Italian black-and-white drama film and the first full length feature film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. It stars Lucia Bosé, then 19-year old Miss Italy 1947 and a flame of Antonioni of that time...
(Story of a Love Affair) (1950). In 1953, he played Spartacus
Spartacus
Spartacus was a famous leader of the slaves in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Little is known about Spartacus beyond the events of the war, and surviving historical accounts are sometimes contradictory and may not always be reliable...
in an Italian epic film known in the US as Sins of Rome and then, returned to work again for Visconti, in Senso
Senso (film)
Senso is a 1954 melodrama film, an adaptation of Camillo Boito's Italian novella Senso by the Italian director Luchino Visconti, with Alida Valli as Livia and Farley Granger as Lieutenant Franz Mahler....
(1954), giving perhaps the finest performance of his career. In the years which followed, he appeared in a large number of mainly Italian films for directors such as Lizzani, Bolognini
Mauro Bolognini
Mauro Bolognini was an Italian film director of literate sensibility, known for masterful handling of period subject matter.-Biography:Mauro Bolognini was born in Pistoia, Tuscany....
, Vittorio Cottafavi, Lattuada
Alberto Lattuada
Alberto Lattuada was an Italian film director.Lattuada was born in Milan, the son of composer Felice Lattuada...
, but it was not until 1968 that he once again played a role worthy of his talents - that of the father in Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian film director, poet, writer, and intellectual. Pasolini distinguished himself as a poet, journalist, philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright, filmmaker, newspaper and magazine columnist, actor, painter and political figure...
's Teorema
Theorem (film)
Teorema is an Italian language movie directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini and starring Laura Betti, Silvana Mangano, Massimo Girotti, Terence Stamp, and Anne Wiazemsky. It was the first time Pasolini worked primarily with professional actors. In this film, an upper-class Milanese family is introduced...
(Theorem) with Terence Stamp
Terence Stamp
Terence Henry Stamp is an English actor. Since starting his career in 1962 he has appeared in over 60 films. His title role as Billy Budd in his film debut earned Stamp an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA nomination for Best Newcomer.His other major roles include...
and Silvana Mangano
Silvana Mangano
Silvana Mangano was an Italian actress.Raised in poverty during World War II, Mangano trained as a dancer and worked as a model before winning a "Miss Rome" beauty pageant in 1946...
. Two years later, Pasolini cast him as Creonte opposite Maria Callas
Maria Callas
Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...
in his Medea (1969). In 1972, he was in Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
's Last Tango in Paris
Last Tango in Paris
Last Tango in Paris is a 1972 Italian romantic drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci which portrays a recent American widower who takes up an anonymous sexual relationship with a young, soon-to-be-married Parisian woman...
.
He continued to act in character roles for the next thirty years. Some of the films he appeared in have been notable, including Joseph Losey
Joseph Losey
Joseph Walton Losey was an American theater and film director. After studying in Germany with Bertolt Brecht, Losey returned to the United States, eventually making his way to Hollywood...
's Monsieur Klein
Monsieur Klein
Monsieur Klein is a 1976 French film directed by Joseph Losey, with Alain Delon starring in the title role.- Synopsis :It is 1942, the war is in full swing and France is occupied by the Nazis. To Robert Klein, however, these events are of little concern...
(1976) with Alain Delon
Alain Delon
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon is a French actor. He rose quickly to stardom, and by the age of 23 was already being compared to French actors such as Gérard Philipe and Jean Marais, as well as American actor James Dean. He was even called the male Brigitte Bardot...
and Jeanne Moreau
Jeanne Moreau
Jeanne Moreau is a French actress, singer, screenwriter and director.She made her theatrical debut in 1947, and established herself as one of the leading actresses of the Comédie-Française...
, the 1985 television miniseries Quo Vadis?, Roberto Benigni
Roberto Benigni
Roberto Remigio Benigni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter and director of film, theatre and television.- Early years :...
's Il mostro (The Monster
The Monster (1994 film)
Il Mostro is a 1994 Italian comedy film. It starred Roberto Benigni as a man who is mistaken by police profilers for a serial killer due to a misunderstanding of the man's strange behavior...
) (1994).
He died in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
of a heart attack after having just completed his last film, Ferzan Ozpetek
Ferzan Özpetek
Ferzan Özpetek is an Italian-Turkish film director and screenwriter, residing in Italy.- Biography :Ferzan Ozpetek was born in Istanbul in 1959. When he was a young student in 1976, he decided to move to Italy to study Cinema History at Sapienza University of Rome...
's La Finestra di fronte (Facing Windows) (2003).
Filmography
- Dora Nelson (1939)
- La corona di ferro (The Iron CrownThe Iron CrownLa corona di ferro is a 1941 Italian award winning fantasy film written and directed by Alessandro Blasetti....
, 1941) - Un Pilota ritorna (A Pilot Returns, 1942)
- OssessioneOssessioneOssessione is a 1943 film based on the novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain. Luchino Visconti’s first feature film, it is considered by many to be the first Italian neorealist film, though there is some debate about whether such a categorization is accurate.- Historical context...
(Obsession) (1943) - La porta del cieloLa porta del cieloLa porta del cielo is a 1945 Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica. The film won the OCIC Special Award at the Venice Film Festival.-Cast:* Marina Berti - La crocerossina* Elettra Druscovich - Filomena, la governante...
(1945) - Caccia tragica (The Tragic Hunt 1946)
- Un giorno nella vitaUn giorno nella vitaUn giorno nella vita is a 1946 Italian war film directed by Alessandro Blasetti. It was entered into the 1946 Cannes Film Festival. American title: "A Day In the Life". This film was screened in 2009 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's retrospective "Life Lessons" Italian Neorealism and the...
(1946) - In nome della leggeIn the Name of the LawIn the Name of the Law is a 1949 Italian language mafia drama film directed by Pietro Germi. It's based on Giuseppe Guido Lo Schiavo's novel Piccola pretura. Federico Fellini co-wrote the script...
(In the Name of the Law, 1949) - Cronaca di un amoreCronaca di un amoreCronaca di un amore is a 1950 Italian black-and-white drama film and the first full length feature film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. It stars Lucia Bosé, then 19-year old Miss Italy 1947 and a flame of Antonioni of that time...
(Story of a Love Affair, 1950) - Sins of Rome (1953)
- SensoSenso (book)Senso is an Italian novella by Camillo Boito, a famous Italian author and architect. He wrote it around 1882. The novella develops a disturbing account of indiscriminate indulgence in selfish sensuality. The word "senso" is Italian for "sense," "feeling," or "sentiment." The title refers to the...
(1954) - Wolves of the DeepWolves of the DeepWolves of the Deep is a 1959 Italian drama film directed by Silvio Amadio. It was entered into the 9th Berlin International Film Festival.-Cast:* Massimo Girotti - Comandante* Folco Lulli - Nostromo* Alberto Lupo - Radiotelegrafista...
(1959) - Venere ImperialeVenere ImperialeVenere Imperiale is a 1962 French-Italian historical film directed by Jean Delannoy and starring Gina Lollobrigida, Stephen Boyd and Raymond Pellegrin...
(1962) - TeoremaTheorem (film)Teorema is an Italian language movie directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini and starring Laura Betti, Silvana Mangano, Massimo Girotti, Terence Stamp, and Anne Wiazemsky. It was the first time Pasolini worked primarily with professional actors. In this film, an upper-class Milanese family is introduced...
(1968) - The Red TentThe Red Tent (film)The Red Tent is a joint Soviet/Italian 1969 film directed by Mikhail Kalatozov.The film is based on the story of the mission to rescue Umberto Nobile and the other survivors of the crash of the Airship Italia. It features Sean Connery as Roald Amundsen and Peter Finch as Nobile. The script was...
(1969) - Medea (1969)
- Last Tango in ParisLast Tango in ParisLast Tango in Paris is a 1972 Italian romantic drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci which portrays a recent American widower who takes up an anonymous sexual relationship with a young, soon-to-be-married Parisian woman...
(1972) - Monsieur KleinMonsieur KleinMonsieur Klein is a 1976 French film directed by Joseph Losey, with Alain Delon starring in the title role.- Synopsis :It is 1942, the war is in full swing and France is occupied by the Nazis. To Robert Klein, however, these events are of little concern...
(1976) - Passion of LovePassion of LovePassion of Love is a 1981 Italian drama film directed by Ettore Scola. It was entered into the 1981 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Bernard Giraudeau - Capt. Giorgio Bacchetti* Valeria D'Obici - Fosca* Laura Antonelli - Clara...
(1981) - Quo Vadis (1985)
- Il mostro (The MonsterThe Monster (1994 film)Il Mostro is a 1994 Italian comedy film. It starred Roberto Benigni as a man who is mistaken by police profilers for a serial killer due to a misunderstanding of the man's strange behavior...
, 1994) - La finestra di fronte (Facing Windows, 2003)