Massimo Girotti

Massimo Girotti 18 May 1918 5 January 2003 was an Italian film actor whose career spanned seven decades Born in Mogliano in the province of Macerata Girotti developed his athletic physique by swimming and playing polo While studying engineering he attracted the attention of Mario Soldati who offered him a small part in the film Dora Nelson 1939 but it was not until later in Alessandro Blasettis La corona di ferro The Iron Crown 1941 and Roberto Rossellinis Un Pilota ritorna A Pilot Returns 1942 that he began to make an impression as a serious actor In 1943 came a turning point in his career when Luchino Visconti cast him opposite the torrid Clara Calamai in Ossessione Obsession an earlier adaptation of the same novel on which Hollywoods The Postman Always Rings Twice is based The film marked in a sense the birth of Italian neorealism Some of his notable postwar films include Caccia tragica The Tragic Hunt 1946 by Giuseppe De Santis and In nome della legge 1949 In the Name of the Law by Pietro Germi In 1950 he starred opposite Lucia Bosé in Michelangelo Antonionis first fulllength feature Cronaca di un amore Story of a Love Affair 1950 In 1953 he played Spartacus in an Italian epic film known in the US as Sins of Rome and then returned to work again for Visconti in Senso 1954 giving perhaps the finest performance of his career In the years which followed he appeared in many mainly Italian films for directors such as Lizzani Bolognini Vittorio Cottafavi Lattuada but it was not until 1968 that he once again played a role worthy of his talents that of the father in Pasolinis Teorema Theorem with Terence Stamp and Silvana Mangano Two years later Pasolini cast him as Creonte opposite Maria Callas in his Medea 1969 In 1972 he was in Bernardo Bertoluccis Last Tango in Paris That same year he made a rare appearance in a horror film when he agreed to a supporting role in Baron Blood as a favor to its director Mario Bava He continued to act in character roles for the next thirty years Some of the films he appeared in have been notable including Joseph Loseys Monsieur Klein 1976 with Alain Delon and Jeanne Moreau Art of Love 1983 by Walerian Borowczyk the 1985 television miniseries Quo Vadis Roberto Benignis Il mostro The Monster 1994 He died in Rome of a heart attack after having just completed his last film Ferzan Özpeteks La Finestra di fronte Facing Windows 2003 Source Article Massimo Girotti from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA