Vittorio Gassman

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Vittorio Gassman (September 1, 1922 – June 29, 2000), popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian theatre and film actor and director.

Born in Genoa to a father from a wealthy family of German origins and a Pisan mother, Gassman was considered one among the best Italian actors and is commonly recalled as an extremely professional, versatile, magnetic interpreter, whose long career includes both important productions as well as dozens of divertissements (which gave him a vast popularity).

While very young he moved to Rome, where he attended the studies at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica where some of the most important figures of Italian theatre and cinema also studied, such as Paolo Stoppa, Rina Morelli, Adolfo Celi, Luigi Squarzina, Elio Pandolfi, Rossella Falk, Lea Padovani and, later, with Paolo Panelli, Nino Manfredi, Tino Buazzelli, Gianrico Tedeschi, Monica Vitti, Luca Ronconi and many others.

His debut was in Milan, in 1942, with Alda Borelli in Niccodemi's Nemica (theatre), he then moved to Rome and the Teatro Eliseo joining Tino Carraro and Ernesto Calindri in a team that remained famous; with them he acted in a range of plays from bourgeois comedy to the sophisticated intellectual theatre, with no apparent difficulty in the sudden changes.

In 1946 he made his film debut in Preludio d'amore, the year after he appeared in five films. In 1948 his famous interpretation in Riso Amaro displayed his love for cinema and his capability of excelling both in movies and at the theatre.

It was with Luchino Visconti's company that Gassman achieved his mature successes, together with Stoppa, Rina Morelli and Paola Borboni. He played a vigorous Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' Un tram che si chiama desiderio, then emphatic in Shakespeare's Rosalinda or in Vittorio Alfieri's Oreste. He then joined the Teatro Nazionale with Tommaso Salvini, Massimo Girotti, Arnoldo Foà, for a successful Peer Gynt (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, then rare works such as Seneca's Tieste or Eschilo's The Persians.

In 1956, a key year in his career, Gassman played a memorable Othello with the great actor Salvo Randone, exchanging with him the roles of the Moor and Iago. A little later, in the television series entitled Il Mattatore (spotlight chaser) he obtained unexpected success and Il Mattatore soon became the nickname that accompanied him for the rest of his life. That year Gassman also directed and starred in a movie dedicated to theatre: it was a version of Kean.

A true perfectionist, he always hated imperfect diction, or dialectal corruptions (but he was also able to render, perfectly and when needed, most of almost all Italian dialects and inflections). Quite bravely, he accepted the challenge of directing Adelchi, one of the less known and less "easy" works by Alessandro Manzoni. He toured his production to half a million spectators, crossing Italy with his Teatro Popolare Itinerante (a newer edition of the famous Carro di Tespi).

Gassman as Brancaleone da Norcia

His productions include most of the famous authors of 20th century, with repeated returns to the classics of Shakespeare, Dostoevskij and the Greeks. He also founded a theatre school in Florence, which formed many of the more talented actors of the current generations.

In cinema he worked frequently both in Italy and abroad. With his natural charisma and his fluency in English he scored a number of roles in Hollywood; it was during an early stint there that he met and married Shelley Winters, whom he divorced to return to Italy.

But, despite his success in films, Gassman never left theatre. In the later part of his career, he added poetry to his repertoire, helping to bring to Italy foreign works.

Gassman the actor, married "only" actresses: Nora Ricci (with whom he had Paola, an actress and wife of Ugo Pagliai); Shelley Winters (mother of his daughter Vittoria); Juliette Maynel (who gave him Alessandro, also an actor), and Diletta D'Andrea who gave him his younger son Jacopo.

Gassman was a man of intense emotions and intellectual honesty; his notable sense of humour and self-irony, brought him in the 1990s to take part in the popular TV show Tunnel in which he very formally and 'seriously' recited documents such as the gas invoice, the telephone bill and similar trivial texts like washing instructions for a woollen sweater or cookies' ingredients. He rendered them with the same professional skill that made him famous while reciting Dante's Commedia.

Generally acclaimed as an actor, Gassman was also discussed as a man, due to his private life - his divorces (a noted scandal in 1950s and 60s), his initial atheism (later he gained a certain personalistic faith). Also, in his public appearances on the media he often gave original or unconventional comments, sometimes with the clear intention of disturbing the moderated cultural positions; he also gained many enemies in the world of art for similarly frank judgments.

In his late years he was a victim of depression.

He died of a heart attack in his Roman home.

[edit] Selected filmography

[edit] Actor

La Bomba (1999)
Luchino Visconti (1999)
La Cena (1998)
Un homme digne de confiance (1997)
Deserto di fuoco(1997, TV Series)
Sleepers (1996)
Tutti gli anni una volta l'anno (1994)
Abraham (1994, TV series)
Quando eravamo repressi (1992)
Tolgo il disturbo (1992)
El Largo invierno (1991)
Rossini! Rossini! (1991)
I Divertimenti della vita privata (1990)
Les Mille et une nuits (1990)
Dimenticare Palermo (1990)
Mortacci (1989)
Lo Zio indegno (1989)
I Picari (1988)
I Soliti ignoti vent'anni dopo (Big Deal After 20 Years, 1987)
La Famiglia (The Family, 1987)
Paradigma (Power of Evil, 1985)
Benvenuta (1983)
La Vie est un roman (Life Is a Bed of Roses, 1983)
Il Conte Tacchia (Count Tacchia, 1982)
Di padre in figlio (1982)
Tempest (1982)
Il Turno (1981)
Sharky's Machine (1981)
Camera d'albergo (Chambre d'hôtel, 1981)
Sono fotogenico (1980)
La Terrazza (The Terrace, 1980)
The Nude Bomb (1980)
Quintet (1979)
Caro papà (Dear Father, 1979)
Due pezzi di pane (Happy Hobos, 1978)
I Nuovi mostri (The New Monsters, 1978)
A Wedding (1978)
Anima persa (The Forbidden Room, 1977)
Come una rosa al naso (Pure as a Lily, 1976)
IL Deserto dei Tartari (The Desert of the Tartars, 1976)
Signore e signori, buonanotte (1976)
Telefoni bianchi (1976)
A mezzanotte va la ronda del piacere (Midnight Pleasures, 1975)
C'eravamo tanto amati (We All Loved Each Other So Much, 1974)
Profumo di donna (Scent of a Woman, 1974)
Che c'entriamo noi con la rivoluzione? (1973)
La Tosca (1973)
Senza famiglia, nullatenenti cercano affetto (1972)
In nome del popolo italiano (1971)
Scipione detto anche l'africano (Scipio the African, 1971)
L'Udienza (The Audience, 1971)
Brancaleone alle Crociate (Brancaleone at the Crusades, 1970)
Contestazione generale (1970)
Il Divorzio (1970)
L'Alibi (Alibi, 1969)
L'Arcangelo (1969)
Dove vai tutta nuda? (Where Are You Going All Naked?, 1969)
Una su 13 (The 13 Chairs, 1969)
La Pecora nera (The Black Sheep, 1968)
Questi fantasmi (Ghosts - Italian Style, 1968)
Il Profeta (1968)
Lo Scatenato (1967)
Il Tigre (1967)
Woman Times Seven (1967)
L'Arcidiavolo (Devil in Love, 1966)
L'Armata Brancaleone (1966)
Le piacevoli notti (1966)
Slalom (1965)
Una Vergine per il principe (Virgin for the Prince, 1965)
The Dirty Game (1965)
La Congiuntura (Hard Time for Princes, 1964)
Il Gaucho (1964)
Se permettete parliamo di donne (Let's Talk About Women, 1964)
Frenesia dell'estate (1963)
La Smania addosso (1963)
Il Successo (1963)
I Mostri (1963)
Amore difficile (Sex Can Be Difficult, 1962)
Il giorno più corto (1962)
La Marcia su Roma (March on Rome, 1962)
Il sorpasso (The Easy Life, 1962)
Barabbas (1962)
Anima nera (1961)
I briganti italiani (1961)
Fantasmi a Roma (Ghosts of Rome, 1961)
Una vita difficile (A Difficult Life, 1961)
Il Giudizio universale (The Last Judgement, 1961)
Crimen (Killing in Monte Carlo, 1960)
Il Mattatore (1960)
Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti (Hold-up à la milanaise, 1959)
La cambiale (1959)
La Grande Guerra (The Great War, 1959)
The Miracle (1959)
Le sorprese dell'amore (1959)
La tempesta (1958)
I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street, 1958)
La ragazza del palio (1957)
Difendo il mio amore (1956)
Giovanni dalle Bande Nere (1956)
Kean (1956)
War and Peace (1956)
La donna più bella del mondo (1955)
Mambo (1954)
Rhapsody (1954)
Sombrero (1953)
The Glass Wall (1953)
Cry of the Hunted (1953)
Il sogno di Zorro (1952)
Anna (1951)
La corona negra (1951)
Il leone di Amalfi (1950)
I fuorilegge, (The Outlaws, 1949)
Ho sognato il paradiso (Streets of Sorrow, 1949)
Il lupo della Sila (1949)
Lo sparviero del Nilo (1949)
Il tradimento (1949)
Una voce nel tuo cuore (1949)
Riso amaro (Bitter Rice, 1948)
Le Avventure di Pinocchio (The Adventures of Pinocchio, 1947)
Il Cavaliere misterioso (The Mysterious Rider, 1947)
Daniele Cortis (1947)
L'Ebreo errante (1947) aka The Wandering Jew, (1947)
La Figlia del capitano (The Captain's Daughter, 1947)
Preludio d'amore (Love Prelude, 1946)

[edit] Director

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

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