Name
Massimo Girotti
Known For
Acting
Birthday
1918-05-18
Deathday
2003-01-05 (85 years old)
Place of Birth
Mogliano, Macerata, Italy
Biography
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 Blasetti's La corona di ferro (The Iron Crown) (1941) and Roberto Rossellini's 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 Hollywood's The Postman Always Rings Twice is based. The film marked, in a sense, the birth of Italian neo-realism. Some of his notable post-war 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 Antonioni's first full-length 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 Pasolini's 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 Bertolucci's 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 Losey's Monsieur Klein (1976) with Alain Delon and Jeanne Moreau, Art of Love (1983) by Walerian Borowczyk, the 1985 television miniseries Quo Vadis?, Roberto Benigni's Il mostro (The Monster) (1994).
He died in Rome of a heart attack after having just completed his last film, Ferzan Özpetek's La Finestra di fronte (Facing Windows) (2003).
Source: Article "Massimo Girotti" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
Known For
6.7
In the 1860's, Giorgio (Giraudeau), a young Italian soldier is sent to a remote post, far ...
6.901
A recently widowed American begins an anonymous sexual relationship with a young Parisian ...
7.5
A history of the French Revolution beginning from the decision of the king to convene the ...
6.192
In impoverished post-war Rome, a gang of young thieves is lead by Stefano, the son of an i...
6.118
A young man, Peter, returns to Austria in search of his heritage. There he visits the cast...
6.962
A vicious serial sex killer is on the loose, and landscape gardener and shop-window outfit...
5.3
What begins as an innocent art class becomes a steamy triangle of erotic passions and forb...
6.9
Tullio Hermil is a chauvinist aristocrat who flaunts his mistress to his wife, but when he...
- 1972 Last Tango in Paris as Marcel
- 1989 The French Revolution as Envoyé du Pape
- 1976 The Innocent as Count Stefano Egano
- 1968 Theorem as Paolo, the Father
- 1972 Baron Blood as Dr. Karl Hummel
- 1943 Obsession as Gino Costa
- 1969 The Red Tent as Giuseppe Romagna Manoja
- 1969 Medea as Creonte
- 2002 Luchino Visconti as Self (archive footage)
- 1950 Duel Without Honor as Carlo
- 1967 The Witches as Sportsman (segment "La strega bruciata viva")
- 2003 Facing Windows as Simone / Davide Veroli
- 1953 The Love of a Woman as André Lorenz
- 1941 The Iron Crown as Arminio / King Licinio
- 1975 The Suspicious Death of a Minor as Gaudenzio Pesce
- 1950 Story of a Love Affair as Guido
- 1983 Art of Love as Ovid
- 1960 Letters of a Novice as Don Paolo Conti
- 1947 Shamed as Rocco
- 1955 Marguerite of the Night as Valentin
- 1942 A Pilot Returns as Lieutenant Gino Rossati
- 1985 The Berlin Affair as Werner von Heiden
- 1948 Difficult Years as Giovanni Piscitello
- 1976 Mr. Klein as Charles, Florence's husband
- 1953 At the Edge of the City as Avv. Roberto Martini
- 1963 Mafia alla sbarra
- 1960 The Giants of Thessaly as Orfeo
- 1952 Rome 11:00 as Nando the Unemployed
- 1949 Fabiola as Sebastian
- 1949 In the Name of the Law as Il pretore Guido Schiavi
- 1946 A Day in the Life as Luigi Monotti
- 1963 Gold for the Caesars as Pro-consul Caius Cornelius Maximus)
- 1946 Desire as Nando Mancini
- 1959 Wolves in the Abyss as Comandante
- 1948 Woman Trouble as Paolo Bertoni
- 1941 I pirati della Malesia as Tremal-Naik
- 1973 The Voracious Ones as Olmi
- 1948 Lost Youth as Marcello Mariani
- 1981 Passion of Love as Colonel
- 1953 A Husband for Anna as Andrea Grazzi
- 1962 Imperial Venus as Leclerc
- 1973 Stateline Motel as Fred Norton
- 1965 Marco the Magnificent as Nicolo, Marco's Father
- 1959 La cento chilometri as Toccaceli
- 1968 Listen, Let's Make Love as Tassi
- 1954 Senso as Il Marchese Roberto Ussoni
- 1974 The Kiss as Eugenio Dazzi
- 1951 Behind Closed Shutters as Ingegnere Roberto
- 1966 The Mysterious Mr. Van Eyck as Friend of Charles
- 1959 Nights of the Teddy Boys as Constantino's Father
- 1952 Leathernose as Doctor Marchal
- 1943 Harlem as Tommaso Rossi
- 1957 La trovatella di Pompei as Guglielmo Curti
- 1953 Vortice as Dr. Guido Aureli
- 1957 Goddess Of Love as Prassitele
- 1943 Apparizione as Franco
- 1947 Fatalità as Vincenzo Masi
- 1954 La tua donna as Sandro Ademari
- 1959 The Head of a Tyrant as Holofernes
- 1952 Il segreto delle tre punte as Massimo Dal Colle
- 1939 Dora Nelson as Enrico
- 1957 It Happened in Rome as Ugo Parenti
- 1960 The Cossacks as Tsar Alexander II
- 1969 The Sisters as Alex
- 1976 And Agnes Chose To Die as Palita
- 2021 Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita as Self (archive footage)
- 1959 Asphalt as Éric
- 1961 Romulus and Remus as Tazio
- 1959 Herod the Great as Ottaviano
- 1947 Tragic Hunt as Michele
- 1958 The Year Long Road as Chiacchiera (Naklapalo)
- 1975 Mark Shoots First as Il Questore Spaini
- 1977 L'Ultimo Aereo per Venezia as Marcello Masini
- 1947 Christmas at Camp 119 as Nane, il veneziano
- 1945 The Gates of Heaven as The blind youth
- 1955 Four of the Thundering Jet as Maggiore Montanari
- 1952 Lieutenant Giorgio as Tenente Giorgio Biserta
- 1980 Un reietto delle isole as Tom Lingard
- 1945 La carne e l'anima as Andrea
- 1994 The Monster as il condomino distinto
- 2000 Der Kardinal - Der Preis der Liebe as Donato
- 1989 Affairs as Count Valery Du Terrail
- 1992 From Night to Dawn as Vergiotti
- 1988 La Bohème as The Old Pretender / Featuring
- 1953 Sins of Rome as Spartacus
- 1945 I dieci comandamenti as (segment "Ricordati di santificare le feste")
- 1950 Land der Sehnsucht
- 1953 Sul ponte dei sospiri as Marco Spada
- 1965 Idoli controluce as Ugo Sanfelice
- 1957 La bestia humana as Pedro Sandoval
- 1955 Disperato addio as dottor Andrea Pitti
- 1941 Le due tigri as Tremal-Naik
- 1949 Altura as Stanis Archena
- 1975 Cagliostro as Giacomo Casanova
- 1941 La famiglia Brambilla in vacanza as Marco Sassoli
- 1960 Cavalcata selvaggia as Lorenzo
- 1957 Saranno uomini as Don Antonio
- 1972 My Body With Anger as Gabriele
- 1963 The Shortest Day as Capitano alla finestra (uncredited)
- 1952 Fugitive in Trieste as Fred Nolan
- 1993 L'Amore Dopo as Ing. Staino
- 1969 La coppia as Guido
- 1996 Un bel dì vedremo as Emilio Venditti
- 1977 Kolossal - The Magnificent Macisti
- 1971 Il segno del comando ( 5 episodes ) as George Powell
- 1969 Jekyll ( 4 episodes ) as John Utterson
- 1985 Quo Vadis? ( 6 episodes ) as Aulus Plautius
- 1985 Christopher Columbus ( 4 episodes ) as Duca Medina Coeli
- 1987 Der Ochsenkrieg ( 6 episodes ) as Someier
- 1990 Der Erfolg ihres Lebens ( 4 episodes ) as Le comte di Falco
- 1989 The French Revolution ( 2 episodes ) as L'envoyé du Pape (« Les Années Lumière »)
- 1976 Origins of the Mafia ( 1 episode ) as Viceroy Caracciolo
