Massimo Girotti

Massimo Girotti (18 May 1918 – 5 January 2003) was an Italian film actor whose career spanned seven decades.

Biography

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).

Selected filmography

Dora Nelson (1939) - Enrico A Romantic Adventure (1940) - Luciano Tosca (1941) - Angeloti (uncredited) The Iron Crown (1941) - Licinio & Arminio, his son Pirates of Malaya (1941) - Tremal-Naik The Two Tigers (1941) - Tremal-Naik The Brambilla Family Go on Holiday (1941) - Marco Sassoli A Pilot Returns (1942) - Il tenente Gino Rossati Harlem (1943) - Tommaso Rossi Ossessione (Obsession) (1943) - Gino Costa Apparition (1943) - Franco The Gates of Heaven (1945) - Il giovane cieco The Ten Commandments (1945) (segment "Ricordati di santificare le feste") La carne e l'anima (1945) - Andrea Un giorno nella vita (1946) - Luigi Monotti Desire (1946) - Nando Mancini Fatalità (1947) - Vincenzo Masi Tragic Hunt (1947) - Michele Shamed (1947) - Rocco Christmas at Camp 119 (1947) .... Nane, il veneziano Lost Youth (1948) - Marcello Mariani Difficult Years (1948) - Giovanni The Street Has Many Dreams (1948) - Paolo Bertoni In the Name of the Law (1949) - Il pretore Guido Schiavi Fabiola (1949) - Sebastian Altura (1949) - Stanis Archena Welcome, Reverend! (1950) Story of a Love Affair (1950) - Guido Land der Sehnsucht (1950) Behind Closed Shutters (1951) - Ingegnere Roberto Fugitive in Trieste (1951) - Il falso giornalista Duello senza onore (1951) - Carlo Rome 11:00 (1952) - Nando Leathernose (1952) - Le docteur Marchal Il segreto delle tre punte (1952) - Massimo Del Colle Lieutenant Giorgio (1952) - Tenente G. Biserta Sins of Rome (Spartaco, 1953) - Spartacus At the Edge of the City (1953) - Avv. Roberto Martini Sul ponte dei sospiri (1953) - Marco Spada A Husband for Anna (1953) - Andrea Grazzi Torna! (1953) - Dott. Guido Aureli The Love of a Woman (1953) - André Lorenzi Senso (1954) - Il marchese Roberto Ussoni La tua donna (1954) - Sandro Ademari Marguerite de la nuit (1955) - Valentin I quattro del getto tonante (1955) - Maggiore Montanari Desperate Farewell (1955) - Dott. Andrea Pitti Dimentica il mio passato (1957) - Carlos Saranno uomini (1957) - Don Antonio Souvenir d'Italie (1957) - Ugo Parenti La Bestia humana (1957) - Pedro Sandoval The Goddess of Love (1957) - Prassitele La trovatella di Pompei (1957) - Guglielmo Curti The Road a Year Long (1958) - Chiacchiera (Naklapalo) Herod the Great (1959) - Ottaviano / Augustus Asphalte (1959) - Éric Head of a Tyrant (1959) - Holophernes Wolves of the Deep (1959) - Comandante La cento chilometri (1959) - Toccaceli Le notti dei Teddy Boys (1959) - Constantinos Vater The Cossacks (1960) - Tsar Alexander II Lettere di una novizia (1960) - Don Paolo Conti The Giants of Thessaly (1960) - Orfeo Cavalcata selvaggia (1960) Duel of the Titans (1961) - Re Tazio Imperial Venus (1962) - Leclerc Mafia alla sbarra (1963) Gold for the Caesars (1963) - Pro-Consul Caius Cornelius Maximus Marco the Magnificent (1965) - Nicolò, Marco's Father Idoli controluce (1965) - Ugo Sanfelice El misterioso señor Van Eyck (1966) La volpe e le camelie (1966) The Witches (1967) - Sportsman (segment "Strega Bruciata Viva, La") Theorem (1968) - Paolo, the father Listen, Let's Make Love (1968) - Tassi Le sorelle (1969) - Alex / Martha's husband The Red Tent (1969) - Romagna Medea (1969) .... King Kresus / Creonte Baron Blood (1972) - Dr. Karl Hummel Last Tango in Paris (1972) - Marcel Il mio corpo con rabbia (1972) - Gabriele Les voraces (1973) - Olmi Stateline Motel (1973) - Fred Norton La coppia (1973) The Kiss of Death (1974) - Eugenio Dazzi Cagliostro (1975) - Giacomo Casanova The Suspicious Death of a Minor (1975) - Gaudenzio Pesce Mark Shoots First (1975) - Il Questore Spaini The Innocent (1976) - Count Stefano Egano Monsieur Klein (1976) - Charles And Agnes Chose to Die (1976) - Palita Origins of the Mafia (1976, TV Mini-Series) - Viceroy Caracciolo Passion of Love (1981) - Colonel Art of Love (1983) - Ovid Quo Vadis? (1985, TV Mini-Series) - Aulus Plautius The Berlin Affair (1985) - Werner Von Heiden La Bohème (1988) - Con la partecipazione di Rebus (1989) - Conte Valery Du Terrail La Révolution française (1989) - L'envoyé du Pape (segment "Anées Lumière, Les") Dall'altra parte del mondo (1992) - Aureliano L'amore dopo (1993) - Ing. Staino The Monster (1994) - Distinguished Resident Un bel dì vedremo (1997) - Emilio Venditti Dionysios Solomos (2001) Facing Windows (2003) - Simone / Davide Veroli (final film role)