Born in Rome, she went through the Roman Academy of Dramatic Art and singing in nightclubs. The only child of the actress was struck by polio when he was 18 months old, and remained a cripple for life. The filmography of Anna Magnani is replete with numerous star films, which are now considered classics.
She was called La Lupa, “Rome's perennial toast” and “living symbol of the she-wolf” in the movies. Time magazine described her personality as “fiery,” and film critic Harold Clerman said her game was “volcanic.” In the field of Italian cinema, she was a passionate, fearless and exciting actress, whom film director Barry Monus calls the “volcanic earth mother of all Italian cinema”. Director Roberto Rossellini called her "the greatest genius actress since the time of Eleanor Duse." The playwright Tennessee Williams became a fan of her acting skills and wrote "Tattooed Rose" specifically for Anna Magnani to play in it. For this role, she was awarded the Oscar in 1955.
After meeting with the director Goffredi Alessandrini, she got the first role. It was the movie Sorrento's Restrained Woman (1934). Then she became internationally famous after filming the Rossellini film "Open City" (1945), which is considered the first significant work of Italian neorealism in cinema.
As an actress, she was recognized for her dynamic and strong roles as mundane lower-class women in such works as L'Amore (1948), and The Most Beautiful (1951 film). Later, she starred in the films "Tattooed Rose", "Runaway Look" (1960) and "Mama Roma" (1962). Already in 1950, Life magazine stated that Magnani was "one of the most impressive actresses, along with Garbo."
Origin
Until the end, it is not known where the Italian actress Anna Magnani was born. Some believe that she was born in Rome, others - that in Egypt. Her mother was Marina Magnani. Filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli, who claimed to know Anna Magnani well, states in her autobiography that she was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and that her mother was Italian Jew and her father Egyptian, and that only later she became Roman when her grandmother brought her to one of the areas of the Roman slums. Magnani herself stated that her mother was married in Egypt, but returned to Rome before giving birth to Porta Pia, and did not know how rumors appeared about her Egyptian origin.
early years
Anna Magnani was enrolled in a French girls' school in Rome, where she learned to speak French and play the piano. She also developed a passion for acting by watching the nuns play at Christmas performances. This period of formal education lasted up to fourteen years.
She was a simple, fragile child with a carefree spirit. Her grandparents provided her with food and clothing. At the age of 17, she entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art of Eleanor Duse in Rome, having studied there for two years. To feed herself, Anna Magnani sang in nightclubs and cabarets. This led to the fact that she was dubbed the "Italian Edith Piaf." However, her friend, actor Mickey Knox, writes that she officially never studied acting and began her career in Italian music halls, where they sang traditional Roman folk songs. Knox said:
“She was instinctive. She had the ability to evoke emotions at her discretion, manipulating the audience, convincing her that life on stage was as real and natural as life in her own kitchen ”
She is known as an outstanding theater actress thanks to “Anna Christie” and “Petrified Forest” and has built a successful career in pop shows.
Early roles
In 1933, she performed in experimental plays in Rome when it was opened by Italian film director Goffredo Alessandrini. He was one of the first Italian filmmakers to use sound. Subsequently, he starred Anna Magnani in her first major role in the film “The Blind Woman of Sorrento” (La Cieca di Sorrento) in 1934.
In 1941, Magnani starred in the film "Teresa Venerdi" writer and director Vittorio de Sica. He called it Magnani's first true film. In it, she plays Laulette Prim, a friend of da Siki, who embodied the image of Pietro Vignali. Yes, Sika described Magnani's laugh as "loud, overwhelming, and tragic."
Movie career
During the construction of her career, Magnani worked alongside the most prominent directors and screenwriters of her time. Among them were Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luchino Visconti, Federico Fellini, Jean Renoir, Sidney Lumet and Tennessee Williams.
"Rome, an open city" (1945)
Her film career began almost 20 years before she gained international fame as Pina in the neo-realist film Roberto Rossellini “Rome, an open city”. The scene of her painful death remains one of the most devastating moments in the history of cinema. The film was dedicated to the last days of Italy under German occupation during World War II, where Anna Magnani brilliantly played the role of a woman who dies, fighting to protect her underground husband.
L'Amore: “The voice of man. Miracle "(1948)
Another example of collaboration with Rossellini is L'Amore (“Love”), a two-hour 1948 film that includes parts entitled “The Miracle” and “The Human Voice” (Il miracolo and Una voce umana). In the first, Magnani plays an exile who believes that the child she bears is Christ, symbolizing both sadness and the righteousness of loneliness in the world. The second film is based on a play by Jean Cocteau about a woman desperately trying to save a relationship over the phone, notable for scenes where Magnani’s impressive moments of silence turn into cries of despair.
The Volcano (1950)
After The Miracle, Rossellini promised to shoot Magnani in the film that he was preparing, and which, he said, would be the pinnacle of her career. However, when the script was completed, he instead gave the role of Stromboli to Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman. Subsequently, they began a love affair, which led to the breakdown of Anna Magnani with Rossellini.
As a result, the heroine of our article got the main role in the film "Volcano", which, they said, was specially written as an answer to the betrayal of Rossellini: both films were shot in similar places of the Aeolian Islands only 40 kilometers from each other, both actresses played independent roles in unrealistic image, and both films were shot simultaneously. Life magazine wrote: “... in an atmosphere crackling with rivalry ... Reporters were accredited as war correspondents belonging to one or the other side of the conflict ... Partisanism infected Via Veneto (boulevard in Rome), where the Magnanians and the Bergmanites often clashed . Nevertheless, Anna Magnani still considered Rossellini "the greatest director she has ever starred in."
The Most Beautiful (1951 film)
In "The Most Beautiful" directed by Luchino Visconti, she plays Maddalena, a frantic, stubborn mother who drags her daughter to Chinechitta for the contest "The Most Beautiful Girl in Rome", dreaming that she will become a star. Her emotions in the film passed from rage and humiliation to motherly love. The film was shot during the "dark period" of the restoration of Italy after World War II.
The Golden Trainer (1953)
In 1957, Magnani starred as Camilla (stage name Columbine) in the movie Jean Renoir Le Carrosse d'or (also known as the "Golden Trainer"). Here she played a woman torn between three men - a soldier, a bullfighter and a viceroy. Renoir called her the greatest actress she has ever worked with.
"Tattooed Rose" and the pinnacle of a career
In the film Tattooed Rose (1955), she played the widowed mother of a teenage daughter. This outstanding tape was shot based on a play by Tennessee Williams. She starred in it along with Bert Lancaster, playing her first English-speaking role, and even in a high-budget Hollywood film. It was this film that presented Anna Magnani with an Oscar for Best Actress. Lancaster, who played the role of a passionate truck driver, said that if she had not found a way to unleash her tremendous vitality, she would have become a great criminal.
Tennessee Williams wrote the script and based the character of Seraphina on Magnani herself, as she was a big fan of her acting abilities. He even stated that the film “should reflect what Time itself created - the explosive character of the greatest actress of her generation, Anna Magnani.”
Williams's script was originally staged on Broadway as a play with Maureen Stapleton in the title role, as Magnani at that time left much to be desired. Magnani received other awards for Best Actress, including the BAFTA Film Award, Golden Globe Award, National Council of Spectators Council Award and New York Film Critics Awards. When she was declared the owner of the Oscars, an American journalist called Rome to tell her about it. Magnani first thought that he was joking.
“Quick Look” (1960)
Magnani again worked with Tennessee Williams on the 1960 film Runaway (originally called Orpheus Descending) directed by Sidney Lumet, in which Lady Torrance played and co-starred with Marlon Brando.
The original script was another Williams play to which he was inspired by Anna Magnani herself, although she also did not play in the original Broadway production. In the film, she embodied a woman fierce injustice of life and the grief that haunts her on the heels. She also starred with young Joan Woodward in one of her early works.
“Mom Roma” (1962)
In this film, Pierre Paolo Pasolini, the heroine of Magnani, is both a mother and a prostitute. She is desperate to give her teenage son a decent middle-class life. The film was never released in the United States until 1995, as it was considered too controversial thirty years earlier.
It is also worth mentioning another vivid film by Anna Magnani - “Deputy Angelina”. However, he is completely lost among her other stellar works.
Acting style
According to one well-known film critic, “the character of the character played by the great actress Magnani (Italian Anna Magnani) is not based on transformation, but on emotional authenticity ... [she] does not portray characters, but expresses them verbally through genuine emotions." Her style is notable for its lack of any signs of reference femininity, while her face and appearance have always been considered attractive. She always had a surprisingly expressive face, and, at least for the American audience, she represents what Hollywood has not consistently produced: reality. ”
She was an atypical star, a "non-global man," because her genuine acting style became a kind of rejection of glamor. Whatever talents Anna Magnani was famous for, the Silver Bear Award went to her precisely for this bright acting style.
According to Wood, her most outstanding work in Hollywood is Wild Wind. Director George Cookor, the greatest American film director filming women, was able to express the individual essence of Magnani.
Her other famous Hollywood works were the film “Tattooed Rose” (1955), for which she received an Oscar in 1955, and “Runaway Look”.
Personal life
During the reign of Benito Mussolini Magnani, as you know, allowed herself very rude statements about the Italian fascist party.
She married her first director, Goffredo Alessandrini, in 1935, two years after he met her on stage. After they got married, she did not work full day to devote herself exclusively to her husband, although she continued to play small roles in films. The couple divorced in 1942.
Magnani had a love affair with actor Massimo Cerato, from whom she gave birth in 1942 to her only child - a son named Luca. Magnani's life was overshadowed by tragedy when Luke at the age of 18 months became disabled due to polio. He never learned to walk. As a result, she spent most of her early earnings on hired professionals and hospital visits. Once, when she saw that a legless war veteran was dragging himself along the sidewalk, she said: “Now I understand that it’s much worse when they grow up,” and decided to earn enough money to rid her son of need forever.
In 1945, she fell in love with director Roberto Rossellini, working with him on the film "Rome, an Open City":
“I finally thought that I had found the perfect man ... [He] lost his own son, and I felt that we understand each other. First of all, we had similar artistic concepts. ”
Rossellini became cruel, unstable and domineering, and they were constantly arguing over movies or mutual jealousy. In a fit of rage, they threw dishes. As artists, however, they complemented each other well while working on neorealist films. The two finally divorced when Rossellini fell in love with Ingrid Bergmani and married her. The personal life of Anna Magnani has not been adjusted since then.
The heroine of our article was distinguished by mystical thinking and consulted with astrologers, and also believed in numerology. Anna also claimed that she was clairvoyant. She ate and drank very little and could exist for a long time on black coffee and cigarettes. However, these habits often harmed her sleep: “My nights are terrifying,” she said. “I wake up in a nervous state, and it takes me several hours to get back to reality.”
Death
Magnani died at the age of 65 in Rome from pancreatic cancer in 1973. She was laid to rest in the family mausoleum of Roberto Rossellini.