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Vittorio Gassman

Vittorio Gassman

Birthday: 1922-09-01 | Place of Birth: Genoa, Liguria, Italy

Vittorio Gassman Knight Grand Cross OMRI (Italian pronunciation: [vitˈtɔːrjo ˈɡazman]; born Gassmann; 1 September 1922 – 29 June 2000), popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian actor, director and screenwriter. He is considered one of the greatest Italian actors, whose career includes both important productions as well as dozens of divertissements. 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 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. On 29 June 2000, Gassman died of a heart attack in his sleep at his home in Rome at the age of 77. He was buried at Campo Verano. Description above from the Wikipedia article Vittorio Gassman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

2006
Adolfo Celi, a Man for Two Worlds

as    Self (archive footage)

1996
Sleepers

as    King Benny

1993
Abraham

as    Terach

1992
The Long Winter

as    Claudio, El Mayordomo

1990
The Palermo Connection

as    Il principe

1987
The Family

as    Carlo as a man / Carlo's grandfather

1985
Power Of Evil

as    Gottfried

1982
Tempest

as    Alonzo

1981
Hotel Room

as    Achille Mengaroni

1981
Sharky's Machine

as    Victor Scorelli

1980
The Nude Bomb

as    Sauvage / Nino Salvatori Sebastiani

1979
Quintet

as    Saint Christopher

1977
Lost Soul

as    Fabio Stolz

1977
The New Monsters

as    il cardinale/il cameriere/il marito/il commissario/il padre di famiglia

1976
Scent of a Woman

as    Fausto Consolo

1976
The Desert of the Tartars

as    Filimore

1976
The Career of a Chambermaid

as    Franco Denza

1976
Goodnight, Ladies and Gentlemen

as    Ispettore Tuttunpezzo / Allievo

1974
We All Loved Each Other So Much

as    Gianni Perego

1970
Brancaleone at the Crusades

as    Brancaleone Da Norcia

1970
Twelve Plus One

as    Mario Beretti

1968
The Devil in Love

as    Belfagor

1967
The Tiger and the Pussycat

as    Francesco Vincenzini

1966
The Dirty Game

as    Perego / Ferrari

1962
Barabbas

as    Sahak

1959
The Great War

as    Giovanni Busacca

1958
Big Deal on Madonna Street

as    Peppe il pantera

1958
Tempest

as    Prosecutor

1956
War and Peace

as    Anatol Kuragin

1955
Beautiful but Dangerous

as    Prince Sergei