Spectators have never seen actor Lino Ventura young. And this is not surprising. After all, he came to the cinema at the age of 35, and he played major roles in the foreground when he was already well over forty.
Unlike the actors who participated in the filming of commercials from infancy, and then in serious films, he never had a "star fever". There is nothing boyish about Ventura.
Everything in him betrays a person who is beaten by life, and, frankly, not only by it. He was a boxer and was engaged in Greco-Roman wrestling. And he got into the cinema by chance.
But, as it turned out, he found his calling here. Let us together follow the life path of a man who, as an Italian, glorified French cinema.
Childhood
The future actor was born July 14, 1919 in Parma (province of Emilia-Romagna). However, until the films with the participation of Lino Ventura were released, our hero bore a different name.
At baptism he was named Anjolino Giuseppe Pasquale. The boy's father, Giovanni Ventura, was not happy with the birth of a child.
And in general, his plans did not include marrying his pregnant girlfriend Louise Borrini. And so he immediately abandoned her, and did not even write the newborn son in his last name.
Soon, the mother took the little Angelino Borrini, or Lino, as she affectionately called her son, to Paris, to her relatives. There were two reasons for this.
First, in more traditional Italy, children born out of wedlock were hostile. And secondly, and this is more important, the air smelled of war, because the party of Mussolini came to power.
In Paris, Lino lived in the Italian quarter, but attended a French school. Studying was given to him not so much with difficulty, just the poverty in which the family lived did not allow him to give himself up to classes completely. Therefore, at the age of eight, he dropped out of school to help his mother.
Youth
Lino Ventura (Borrini) grew up a strong, strong boy. Back in school, he became interested in boxing.
All his free time left from work, he spent in the gym. It seemed that he was not at all interested in what his peers were interested in.
But behind his passion for boxing and building a sports career, the young man did not forget about the girls. With Italian monogamous passion, he courted his classmate Odette Leconte.
This went on for six whole years. Lino, wise by the experience of his parents, believed that you need to get married only when you are confident in your choice. In addition, he wanted to gain a position in society in order to provide for his family.
In the early 40s, he still managed to sign a contract to participate in professional boxing fights.
The couple entered into an official marriage in 1942.
But since Lino did not have French citizenship, eight days after the wedding, he received a notification from Parma that he should come to his homeland to "settle the formalities."
War
Already on the train at the border crossing, Anjolino Borrini (Lino Ventura) realized that he was trapped. The authorities reminded him that he was a citizen of great Italy, and therefore must fight for the ideals of fascism in alliance with friendly Nazi Germany.
The young boxer was never interested in politics. But now she took up it. Therefore, Lino made his choice.
He did not work for the Nazis and fight the partisans in Yugoslavia, where he was sent, but deserted from the army and secretly crossed the border with France. But Paris, meanwhile, was already occupied by Germany.
Therefore, Lino was afraid to appear at home. He was afraid even to give Odette news. Indeed, the deserter’s house was under surveillance and his wife could be taken to the Gestapo or even to a concentration camp if the authorities suspect that she knows something about the whereabouts of her husband. So he hid, suffering hardship, until 1944.
Sunset sports career
Returning to the Odette, Lino Ventura began to catch up, diligently engaged in boxing and Greco-Roman wrestling. His efforts were justified.
Already in 1946, he became a professional athlete in ketch. And in 1950, he even won the European title in his weight category (75-79 kilograms).
But the athlete’s star suddenly rolled. Only six months passed after receiving the champion title, as Lino Borrini expected a fateful fight with Ari Kogan.
In this fight, the athlete received a fracture of both legs. There was nothing even to think about the continuation of the fighting career.
Then the former boxer redesigned. He began to train young athletes, as well as organize fights. This was enough to provide for the family.
By the way, about the personal life of a boxer and actor. She does not replete with loud divorces and secret novels. Being a monogamous, Ventura lived his whole life soul to soul with Odette Leconte.
She bore him four children: Mylene, Lawrence, Linda and Clelia. The first-born of the couple was born in 1946, and the youngest daughter - in 1961.
Debut in the cinema
In his first film, Lino Ventura starred almost by accident. The fact is that director Becker, who worked on “Don't Touch Prey,” was looking for the right character for the role of a gangster. All the actors who came to the casting were rejected.
And then the assistant director met Lino Borrini. The massive, as if carved from granite figure of a former wrestler, his ominous sullen face impressed.
The assistant director suggested the ex-athlete to star in the film, but he refused. Becker, seeing Borrini, increased the promised fee.
Lino agreed to participate in the filming, but with one condition: a real star, Jean Gabin, will play with him in tandem. And his hero in the movie will be named Lino.
Becker agreed. And Ventura did not hesitate to go into the dressing room of Gaben to check if he was being played.
Career
Once Ventura admitted in an interview that he refused to play a movie because of respect for this type of art. He believed that lay people have no place on the set.
But his idol was Jean Gabin, and Ventura could not resist the temptation to get to know the actor better.
“This will be my first and last film,” he told himself, agreeing to shoot in Don't Touch the Booty (1954). But others followed this work.
Then the actor decided to change his official name, which is too well known in sports circles, to a creative pseudonym. In it, he combined the name of his father, which he always spoke of only contemptuously, and the nickname by which his mother and wife called him.
So in French cinema, a new star shone - Lino Ventura. The filmography of the actor has 59 works. At first, he played negative characters (a corrupt policeman in The Three-Penny Opera or a mafia in Valachi Papers).
Venerable actor
After the release of the film “Do not touch the booty”, invitations to appear in other films began to pour on the actor. And Ventura succumbed to persuasion.
In 1960, he broke with the world of sports, bought a house on the outskirts of Paris and plunged into the cinema with his head. At that time, the role of the actor significantly expanded.
In addition to gangsters and hired killers, he began to play the role of internally broken people, psychologically weak characters. So, you can recall at least "Adventurers", where the actor was transformed into Roland.
It should be said that in his best films, Lino Ventura starred when he had previously reserved the right to change the hero’s remarks. He reduced them to a minimum, arguing that cinema is the art of action, and monologues should be left for the theater.
He also adjusted the hero for himself in order to play on the set as he was in life. For this reason, he put forward the second condition for the directors - no bed scenes. They even persuaded him to kiss on the screen with long exhortations only twice.
Films of the late 60s
Only six years have passed since Ventura appeared in the world of cinema and became famous. He was invited to star in roles with other star actors. And often the scripts were written "under Ventura."
An example of this is the film "Adventurers" (1967). In this film adaptation of the novel of the same name by José Giovanni Lino Ventura with Alain Delon, the main roles were played by the mechanic Roland Darban and the pilot Manu Borelli.
The film was a success both in Europe and the USA, and in the USSR, where censorship in a truncated form passed it. Filming was conducted, in particular, at Fort Boyard, at that time completely abandoned and in poor condition.
Interestingly, this island fortress took a quarter to an hour in the film. But it took more than three weeks to shoot.
And once, due to a severe storm, the entire group of actors had to be evacuated from the fort by helicopter. Among other famous films of the late 60s, one can recall the Sicilian Clan (Commissioner Le Goff) and The Army of Shadows (Philippe Gerbier).
Works of 70-80s
Another ten years have passed, and the actor changes his role again. Now he often starred in comedies. But he also likes deeply psychological roles in dramas. Vivid films of those years are “Bore”, where Ventura played in tandem with Jacques Brel, and the spy thriller “Silent”.
It is also worth noting the work of the actor as a policeman in the film "Shining corpses." The critics praised the film "Happy New Year" at the 21st International Film Festival in Saint-Sebastian. Lino Ventura and Francoise Fabian received prizes there for the best performance of the main male and female roles.
In the film "Rum Boulevard" the actor starred with Bridget Bardot. Collaboration did not work out for a long time. Only when Bardo became friends with the actor did work get better.
Ventura did not like costumed historical films. To dress in the style of the past era, he was inspired only by the film adaptation of the novel Les Miserables (Jean Valjean). The actor’s last work was the film One Hundred Days in Palermo (1984), where he played General Carl Dall Chiesz.
Interesting facts about Lino Ventura
Despite the fact that Angelino Borelli spent his entire conscious life in France, he never received the citizenship of this country. This allowed Italy to shamelessly cut his fees.
The legal advisers told him that the French tax laws were much milder, but Ventura remained adamant. He was a real Italian: a conservative family man, an excellent culinary specialist and a demanding gourmet.
His daughters say that the father kept them strict and did not allow them to even go outside without permission. But he passionately loved them, like his wife. Ventura suddenly died of a heart attack on October 23, 1987 at the age of 68.