Anna Magnani

Known for ActingBorn 1908-03-07Died 1973-09-26Rome, Italy

Anna Magnani (pronounced: mahn-YANEE; 7 March 1908 – 26 September 1973) was an Italian stage and film actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, along with four other international awards, for her portrayal of a Sicilian widow in The Rose Tattoo. Born in Rome to an Egyptian father and an Italian mother, she worked her way through Rome's Academy of Dramatic Art by singing at night clubs. During her career, her only child was stricken by polio when he was 18 months old and remained crippled. She was referred to as "La Lupa," the "perennial toast of Rome" and a "living she-wolf symbol" of the cinema. Time magazine described her personality as "fiery", and drama critic Harold Clurman said her acting was "volcanic". In the realm of Italian cinema, she was "passionate, fearless, and exciting," an actress that film historian Barry Monush calls "the volcanic earth mother of all Italian cinema." Director Roberto Rossellini called her "the greatest acting genius since Eleonora Duse. Playwright Tennessee Williams became an admirer of her acting and wrote The Rose Tattoo specifically for her to star in, a role for which she received her first Oscar in 1955. After meeting director Goffredo Alessandrini she received her first screen role in La cieca di Sorrento (The Blind Woman of Sorrento) (1934) and later achieved international fame in Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945), considered the first significant movie to launch the Italian neorealism movement in cinema. As an actress she became recognized for her dynamic and forceful portrayals of "earthy lower-class women" in such films as The Miracle (1948), Bellissima (1951), The Rose Tattoo (1955), The Fugitive Kind (1960), with Marlon Brando and directed by Sidney Lumet, and Mamma Roma (1962). As early as 1950, Life magazine had already stated that Magnani was "one of the most impressive actresses since Garbo". Description above from the Wikipedia article Anna Magnani, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on WikipediaRead more

Movies & web series

Quand Jean devint Renoir

Un film et son époque

Rossellini Through His Own Eyes

We Are Cinema

Crazy Quartet

Princess Tarakanova

30 Seconds of Love

Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of the American Stage

Bellissimo: Images of the Italian Cinema

My Name Is Anna Magnani

Una lampada alla finestra

Cinépanorama

Tre donne - 1943: Un incontro

Barbra Streisand: The Movie Album

Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita

Mamma Roma

Rome, Open City

Il fiore sotto gli occhi

L'avventura di Annabella

Tre donne - La sciantosa

Bellissima

Das Mädchen der Strasse

The Treasure of His Youth: The Photographs of Paolo Di Paolo

My Dad Is 100 Years Old

La vita è bella

Once Upon a Time... 'Rome, Open City'

Girlfriend in a Coma

Red Shirts - Anita Garibaldi

Hell in the City

Roma

The Peddler and the Lady

The Passion of Anna Magnani

Assunta Spina

The Secret of Santa Vittoria

The Golden Coach

What's My Line?

The Oscars

The Passionate Thief

The Fugitive Kind

Revenge

The Rose Tattoo

The Awakening

Finalmente soli

Wild Is the Wind

Vittorio D.

Variety carousel

1870

Before Him All Rome Trembled