Rafaela Ottiano
Encyclopedia
Rafaela Ottiano was an Italian-born American
stage and film actress.
in 1910.
(1924), the Mae West
play Diamond Lil
(1928), and the play version of Grand Hotel
(1930).
Ottiano's first film was in the John L. McCutcheon-directed drama The Law and the Lady (1924) with Len Leo, Alice Lake
, and Tyrone Power, Sr.
Ottiano was part of the original 1928 Broadway cast of the hit play Diamond Lil, written by and starring Mae West. Ottiano reprised her role as Rita when the play was adapted for the movie She Done Him Wrong
(1933), directed by Lowell Sherman
.
Throughout the 1930s, Ottiano would often specialize in roles as sinister, maleveolent, or spiteful women, such as her role in the Tod Browning
-directed horror film The Devil-Doll
(1936), opposite Lionel Barrymore
and Maureen O'Sullivan
.
Other notable film roles for Ottiano include Lena in As You Desire Me
(1932) with Greta Garbo
, Melvyn Douglas
, Erich von Stroheim
, Owen Moore
, and Hedda Hopper
, "Mrs. Higgins" in the Shirley Temple
musical-comedy Curly Top (1935), as a matron in the crime-drama Riffraff
(1936), starring Jean Harlow
and Spencer Tracy
, and as "Suzette", Greta Garbo's devoted maid in the Edmund Goulding
-directed drama Grand Hotel
(1932).
When Grand Hotel was turned into a Broadway Musical
in 1989, her character was renamed Rafaela Ottiano in honor of the actress, who had appeared on Broadway in 1930, in the original play version of the Vicki Baum
novel.
Ottiano's last film was the musical comedy I Married an Angel
(1942), starring Nelson Eddy
and Jeanette MacDonald
. During her career in film, she appeared in approximately 45 motion pictures, opposite such actors as Barbara Stanwyck
, Conrad Nagel
, Peter Lorre
, Zasu Pitts
, and Katharine Hepburn
.
area during the Prohibition Era
and never married. She died in 1942, in the East Boston, Massachusetts
home of her late parents, of intestinal cancer at the age of 54.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
stage and film actress.
Early life
Born in Venice, Italy, she emigrated with her parents to the United States, and was processed at Ellis IslandEllis Island
Ellis Island in New York Harbor was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States. It was the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The island was greatly expanded with landfill between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the...
in 1910.
Career
Ottiano established herself as a stage actress in Europe before arriving in Hollywood in 1924 and appearing in American motion pictures. She appeared on Broadway in Sweeney ToddSweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as then antagonist of the Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls and he was later introduced as an antihero in the broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its film adaptation...
(1924), the Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
play Diamond Lil
Diamond Lil (play)
Diamond Lil is a 1928 play by sultry American actress and playwright Mae West. Prior to Diamond Lil, she had written a number of plays that were closed down due to either poor ticket sales or censorship issues with the establishments of the time, despite the fact that many high ranking officials...
(1928), and the play version of Grand Hotel
Grand Hotel
Grand hotel is a term for a large and luxurious hotel, especially one built in a traditional architectural style. More specifically,Grand Hotel may refer to:- Europe :* Grand Hotel Esplanade, Berlin, Germany* Grand Hotel , England...
(1930).
Ottiano's first film was in the John L. McCutcheon-directed drama The Law and the Lady (1924) with Len Leo, Alice Lake
Alice Lake
Alice Lake was an American film actress. She began her career during the silent film era and often appeared in comedy shorts opposite Roscoe Arbuckle.-Career:...
, and Tyrone Power, Sr.
Tyrone Power, Sr.
Frederick Tyrone Edmond Power was an English-born American stage and screen actor, who acted under the name Tyrone Power.-Early life:Power was born in London in 1869, the son of Harold Littledale Power and Ethel Lavenu...
Ottiano was part of the original 1928 Broadway cast of the hit play Diamond Lil, written by and starring Mae West. Ottiano reprised her role as Rita when the play was adapted for the movie She Done Him Wrong
She Done Him Wrong
She Done Him Wrong is a Pre-Code 1933 Paramount Pictures comedy romance film starring Mae West and Cary Grant. Others in the cast include Owen Moore, Gilbert Roland, Noah Beery, Sr., Louise Beavers and Rochelle Hudson....
(1933), directed by Lowell Sherman
Lowell Sherman
Lowell Sherman was an American actor and film director....
.
Throughout the 1930s, Ottiano would often specialize in roles as sinister, maleveolent, or spiteful women, such as her role in the Tod Browning
Tod Browning
Tod Browning was an American motion picture actor, director and screenwriter.Browning's career spanned the silent and talkie eras...
-directed horror film The Devil-Doll
The Devil-Doll
The Devil-Doll is a horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring a cross-dressing Lionel Barrymore and Maureen O'Sullivan as his daughter, Lorraine Levond...
(1936), opposite Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore
Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...
and Maureen O'Sullivan
Maureen O'Sullivan
Maureen Paula O’Sullivan was an Irish actress.-Early life:O'Sullivan was born in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland, the daughter of Roman Catholic parents Mary Lovatt and Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in The Connaught Rangers who served in The Great War...
.
Other notable film roles for Ottiano include Lena in As You Desire Me
As You Desire Me (film)
As You Desire Me is a 1932 film adaptation of the play by Luigi Pirandello made by MGM. It was produced and directed by George Fitzmaurice with Irving Thalberg as co-producer. The adaptation was by Gene Markey, the cinematography byWilliam H...
(1932) with Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
, Melvyn Douglas
Melvyn Douglas
Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg , better known as Melvyn Douglas, was an American actor.Coming to prominence in the 1930s as a suave leading man , Douglas later transitioned into more mature and fatherly roles as in his Academy Award-winning performances in Hud...
, Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim was an Austrian-born film star of the silent era, subsequently noted as an auteur for his directorial work.-Background:...
, Owen Moore
Owen Moore
Owen Moore was an Irish-born actor in American films, appearing in more than 279 movies spanning from 1908 to 1937.-Life and career:...
, and Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper
Hedda Hopper was an American actress and gossip columnist, whose long-running feud with friend turned arch-rival Louella Parsons became at least as notorious as many of Hopper's columns.-Early life:...
, "Mrs. Higgins" in the Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
musical-comedy Curly Top (1935), as a matron in the crime-drama Riffraff
Riffraff (1936 film)
Riffraff is a 1936 film starring Jean Harlow and Spencer Tracy. The movie was written by Frances Marion, Anita Loos, and H. W. Hannaford, and directed by J. Walter Ruben.-Plot:...
(1936), starring Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow was an American film actress and sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Blonde Bombshell" and the "Platinum Blonde" , Harlow was ranked as one of the greatest movie stars of all time by the American Film Institute...
and Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
, and as "Suzette", Greta Garbo's devoted maid in the Edmund Goulding
Edmund Goulding
Edmund Goulding was a British film writer and director. As an actor early in his career he was one of the 'Ghosts' in the 1922 British made Paramount silent Three Live Ghosts alongside Norman Kerry and Cyril Chadwick. Also in the early 20s he wrote several screenplays for star Mae Murray and...
-directed drama Grand Hotel
Grand Hotel (film)
Grand Hotel is a 1932 American drama film directed by Edmund Goulding. The screenplay by William A. Drake and Béla Balázs is based on the 1930 play of the same title by Drake, who had adapted it from the 1929 novel Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum...
(1932).
When Grand Hotel was turned into a Broadway Musical
Grand Hotel (musical)
Grand Hotel is a musical with a book by Luther Davis and music and lyrics by Robert Wright and George Forrest, with additional lyrics and music by Maury Yeston....
in 1989, her character was renamed Rafaela Ottiano in honor of the actress, who had appeared on Broadway in 1930, in the original play version of the Vicki Baum
Vicki Baum
Hedwig Baum was an Austrian writer. She is known for Menschen im Hotel , one of her first international successes....
novel.
Ottiano's last film was the musical comedy I Married an Angel
I Married an Angel (film)
I Married an Angel is an a 1942 American motion picture based on the 1938 musical comedy of the same name by Rodgers and Hart. The film was directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starred Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, who were then a popular onscreen couple...
(1942), starring Nelson Eddy
Nelson Eddy
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred...
and Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...
. During her career in film, she appeared in approximately 45 motion pictures, opposite such actors as Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
, Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel was an American screen actor and matinee idol of the silent film era and beyond. He was also a well-known television actor and radio performer.-Biography:...
, Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
, Zasu Pitts
ZaSu Pitts
ZaSu Pitts was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas and comedies, transitioning to comedy sound films.-Early life:ZaSu Pitts was born in Parsons, Kansas to Rulandus and Nellie Pitts; she was the third of four children...
, and Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
.
Personal life
Ottiano lived in the Times SquareTimes Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
area during the Prohibition Era
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
and never married. She died in 1942, in the East Boston, Massachusetts
East Boston, Massachusetts
East Boston is a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, with approximately 40,000 residents. The community was created by connecting several islands using landfill and was annexed by Boston in 1836. East Boston is separated from the rest of the city by Boston Harbor and bordered by Winthrop,...
home of her late parents, of intestinal cancer at the age of 54.