Anna Magnani
Anna Maria Magnani (Italian: [ˈanna maɲˈɲaːni]; 7 March 1908 – 26 September 1973) was an Italian actress.[1] She was known for her explosive acting and earthy, realistic portrayals of characters.
Anna Magnani
26 September 1973 (aged 65)
Actress
1928–1972
1
Born in Rome,[2] she worked her way through Rome's Academy of Dramatic Art by singing at night clubs. During her career, her only child was stricken by polio when he was 18 months old and remained disabled. She was referred to as "La Lupa", the "perennial toast of Rome" and a "living she-wolf symbol" of the cinema. Time described her personality as "fiery", and drama critic Harold Clurman said her acting was "volcanic". In the realm of Italian cinema, she was "passionate, fearless, and exciting", an actress whom film historian Barry Monush calls "the volcanic earth mother of all Italian cinema."[3] Director Roberto Rossellini called her "the greatest acting genius since Eleonora Duse".[2] Playwright Tennessee Williams became an admirer of her acting and wrote The Rose Tattoo (1955) specifically for her to star in, a role for which she received an Academy Award for Best Actress, becoming the first Italian – and first non-English speaking woman – to win an Oscar.
After meeting director Goffredo Alessandrini, she received her first screen role in The Blind Woman of Sorrento (La cieca di Sorrento, 1934) and later achieved international attention in Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945), which is seen as launching the Italian neorealism movement in cinema.[3] As an actress, she became recognized for her dynamic and forceful portrayals of "earthy lower-class women"[4] in such films as L'Amore (1948), Bellissima (1951), The Rose Tattoo (1955), The Fugitive Kind (1960) and Mamma Roma (1962). As early as 1950, Life had already stated that Magnani was "one of the most impressive actresses since Garbo".[5]
Early acting career[edit]
In 1933, Magnani was acting in experimental plays in Rome when she was discovered by Italian filmmaker Goffredo Alessandrini.[5] The couple married the same year. Nunzio Malasomma directed her in her first major film role in The Blind Woman of Sorrento (La Cieca di Sorrento, 1934).Goffredo Alessandrini directed her in Cavalry (Cavalleria, 1936). For director Vittorio De Sica, Magnani starred in Teresa Venerdì (1941). De Sica called this Magnani's "first true film". In it, she plays Loletta Prima, the girlfriend of De Sica’s character, Pietro Vignali. De Sica described Magnani's laugh as "loud, overwhelming, and tragic".
American Films[edit]
The Rose Tattoo (1955)[edit]
She played the widowed mother of a teenaged daughter in Daniel Mann's 1955 film, The Rose Tattoo, based on the play by Tennessee Williams. It co-starred Burt Lancaster, and was Magnani's first English-speaking role in a mainstream Hollywood movie, winning her the Academy Award for Best Actress. Lancaster, who played the role of a "lusty truck driver", said, "if she had not found acting as an outlet for her enormous vitality, she would have become a great criminal".[14]
Film historian John DiLeo has written that Magnani's acting in the film "displays why she is inarguably one of the half dozen greatest screen actresses of all time", and added:
Acting style[edit]
According to film critic Robin Wood, Magnani's "persona as a great actress is built, not on transformation, but on emotional authenticity... [she] doesn't portray characters but expresses 'genuine' emotions."[7] Her style does not display the more obvious attributes of the female star, with neither her face or physical makeup being considered "beautiful", wrote Wood. However, she possesses a "remarkably expressive face," and for American audiences, at least, she represents "what Hollywood had consistently failed to produce: 'reality'". She was the atypical star, the "nonglamorous human being", as her genuine style of acting became a "rejection of glamour".[7]
Her most distinguished work in Hollywood is in Wild Is the Wind, according to Wood. Directed by George Cukor, "the American cinema's greatest director of actresses," he was able to draw out the "individual essence" of Magnani's "sensitive and inward performance."[7]
Death[edit]
On 26 September 1973, Magnani died at the age of 65 in Rome from pancreatic cancer. Huge crowds gathered for the funeral. She was provisionally laid to rest in the family mausoleum of Roberto Rossellini; but then subsequently interred in the Cimitero Comunale of San Felice Circeo in southern Lazio.