Massimo Girotti

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	Acting
Most Rating	0.9551
Birthday	1918-05-18
Place of Birth	Mogliano, Macerata, Italy
Also Known As	Массимо Джиротти,

Last Tango in Paris

The French Revolution

The Innocent

Theorem

Baron Blood

Obsession

The Red Tent

Medea

Luchino Visconti

Duel Without Honor

The Witches

Facing Windows

The Love of a Woman

The Iron Crown

The Suspicious Death of a Minor

Story of a Love Affair

Art of Love

Letters of a Novice

Shamed

Marguerite of the Night

A Pilot Returns

The Berlin Affair

Difficult Years

Mr. Klein

At the Edge of the City

Mafia alla sbarra

The Giants of Thessaly

Rome 11:00

Fabiola

In the Name of the Law

A Day in the Life

Gold for the Caesars

Desire

Wolves in the Abyss

Woman Trouble

I pirati della Malesia

The Voracious Ones

Lost Youth

Passion of Love

A Husband for Anna

Imperial Venus

Stateline Motel

Marco the Magnificent

La cento chilometri

Listen, Let's Make Love

The Kiss

Senso

Behind Closed Shutters

The Mysterious Mr. Van Eyck

Nights of the Teddy Boys

Leathernose

Harlem

La trovatella di Pompei

Vortice

Goddess Of Love

Apparizione

Fatalità

La tua donna

The Head of a Tyrant

Il segreto delle tre punte

Dora Nelson

It Happened in Rome

The Cossacks

The Sisters

And Agnes Chose to Die

Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita

Asphalt

Romulus and Remus

Herod the Great

Tragic Hunt

The Year Long Road

Mark Shoots First

L'Ultimo Aereo per Venezia

Christmas at Camp 119

The Gates of Heaven

Four of the Thundering Jet

Lieutenant Giorgio

Un reietto delle isole

La carne e l'anima

The Monster