Vittorio Gassman

Years active1942–1999SpousesPartnerJuliette Mayniel (1964–1968)Children4, including Paola and AlessandroRelativesLeo Gassmann (grandson)AwardsBest Actor Award (Cannes Film Festival) (Scent of a Woman, 1975)

Vittorio Gassman Knight Grand Cross OMRI (Italian pronunciation: [vitˈtɔːrjo ˈɡazman]; born Gassmann; 1 September 1922 – 29 June 2000),^[1] popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian actor, director, and screenwriter.^[2]

He is considered one of the greatest Italian actors, whose career includes both important productions as well as dozens of divertissements.^[3]

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.^[4] While still very young, he moved to Rome, where he studied at the Silvio D'Amico National Academy of Dramatic Arts.^[5]

Career

Gassman's debut was in Milan, in 1942, with Alda Borelli in Niccodemi's La Nemica (theatre). He then moved to Rome and acted at the Teatro Eliseo joining Tino Carraro and Ernesto Calindri in a team that remained famous for some time; with them he acted in a range of plays from bourgeois comedy to sophisticated intellectual theatre. 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 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 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.

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 Il Mattatore (Spotlight Chaser) [it] that "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,^[how?] 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, 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.^[6]

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 fulfill 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.^[7] He rendered them with the same professional skill that made him famous while reciting Dante's Divine Comedy.^[8][9]

In 1994, Gassman voiced Mufasa in the Italian dubbed version of The Lion King.^[10] 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);^[11] Shelley Winters (mother of his daughter Vittoria);^[12] and Diletta D'Andrea [it] (mother of his son Jacopo).^[13][14]

While rehearsing Hamlet, he began an affair with Anna Maria Ferrero, his 16-year-old Ophelia, which ended his marriage to Winters.^[15] 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).^[16] Through Alessandro, he is the grandfather of singer-songwriter Leo Gassmann.^[17]

Death

On 29 June 2000, Gassman died of a heart attack in his sleep at his home in Rome at the age of 77.^[18] He was buried at Campo Verano.^[19]

Gassman suffered from bipolar disorder.^[20]

Filmography

Actor

Director

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

Dubbing roles

Animation

• Mufasa in The Lion King (1994), dubbing James Earl Jones^[21]

Live action

• Narrator in Romeo and Juliet (1968), dubbing Laurence Olivier

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

External links

Media related to Vittorio Gassman at Wikimedia Commons

• Vittorio Gassman at IMDb
• Vittorio Gassman at AllMovie
• Vittorio Gassman at Find a Grave
• Vittorio Gassman discography at Discogs