Vittorio Gassman
AKA: Vittorio Gassmann
Birthday: 1922-09-01
Died: 2000-06-29
Birthplace: 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.
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Filmography
Character: Brancaleone da Norcia
Character: Anatol Kuragin
Character: Peppe il pantera
Character: Self (archive footage)
Character: Sauvage / Nino Salvatori Sebastiani
Character: Carlo as a man / Carlo's grandfather
Character: Victor Scorelli
Character: Pasquale Lojacono
Character: Saint Christopher
Character: il cardinale/il cameriere/il marito/il commissario/il padre di famiglia
Character: The Actor (segment "La Raccomandazione") / Policeman (segment "Il Mostro") / Production Assistant & Movie Director (segment "Presa dalla Vita") / Nicola (segment "Che Vitaccia!") / Blonde Latin Lover (segment "Latin Lovers-Amanti latini") / Defence Layer D'Amore (segment "Testimone volontario") / Richetto (segment "I due Orfanelli") / Roberto (segment "Il Sacrificato") / Elisa (segment "La Musa") / The Road Hog (segment "La Strada è di Tutti") / The Friar (segment "Il Testamento di Francesco") / Artemio Altidori (segment "La nobile Arte")
Character: Walter Guarini
Character: Self (archive footage)
Character: Fausto Consolo
Character: Albino Millozza
Character: Piero di Montalcino
Character: Brancaleone Da Norcia
Character: Principe Donati
Character: Gerardo Latini
Character: Self (uncredited)
Character: Principe Vincenzo Gonzaga
Character: Francesco Vincenzini
Character: Straniero / Practical Joker / Cliente / Amante / Amante impaziente / Cameriere / Fratello timido / Rigattiere / Prigioniero
Character: Giovanni Busacca
Character: Domenico Rocchetti
Character: Self (archive footage)
Character: Self (archive footage)
Character: Vittorio Gassman - in Film Clip (archive footage) (uncredited)
Character: Marquis Felipe de Aragona
Character: Andrea Sansoni
Character: Prince Torquato Terenzi
Character: Don Vito Bracalone
Character: Ludwig van Beethoven
Character: Bastiano da Sangallo
Character: Giulio Ceriani
Character: Leonardo Nenci
Character: Pietro Breccia
Character: Marco Ravicchio
Character: Bob Chiaramonte
Character: Perego / Ferrari
Character: Achille Mengaroni
Character: Rufus Conforti
Character: Don Juan Antonio
Character: Giorgio Mazzanò, lawyer
Character: Adriano Zucchelli
Character: Giacomo Casanova, cavaliere di Seingalt
Character: Pietro Campolo (as Vittorio Gassmann)
Character: Alejandro Castillo
Character: Catone il Censore
Character: Self (archive footage)
Character: Furio Bertuccia
Character: The Sexologist
Character: Mario Agasti / Filippo Agasti
Character: Mathieu Blumenthal
Character: Giovanni De Medici
Character: Il padre / Sofocle
Character: Claudio, El Mayordomo
Character: Self (archive footage)
Character: maestro Pezzullo
Character: Self (archive footage)
Character: Self (archive footage)
Character: Ispettore Tuttunpezzo / Allievo
Character: Giovanni Marchi
Character: Anthony M. Wilson
Character: Vittorio Gassman (uncredited)
Character: Giuseppe "Peppe er Pantera" Baiocchi
Character: L'avvocato (segment "L'avaro")
Character: Hässlicher Fischer / Il Pescatore verde
Character: Daniele Cortis
Character: Lorenzo Santenocito
Character: Armando Zavanatti
Character: Augusto Scribani
Character: L'uomo dal fiore in bocca