Massimo Girotti
Known for: Acting
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.
Filmography
Film
Last Tango in Paris
Marcel
1972
Series
Christopher Columbus
Duca Medina Coeli
1985
Series
Origins of the Mafia
Viceroy Caracciolo
1976
Film
The Monster
il condomino distinto
1994
Series
The French Revolution
L'envoyé du Pape (« Les Années Lumière »)
1989
Film
The French Revolution
Envoyé du Pape
1989
Film
Mr. Klein
Charles, Florence's husband
1976
Film
The Innocent
Count Stefano Egano
1976
Film
Theorem
Paolo, the Father
1968
Film
The Year Long Road
Chiacchiera (Naklapalo)
1958
Film
Baron Blood
Dr. Karl Hummel
1972
Film
The Witches
Sportsman (segment "La strega bruciata viva")
1967
Series
Quo Vadis?
Aulus Plautius
1985
Film
Imperial Venus
Leclerc
1962
Film
The Red Tent
Giuseppe Romagna Manoja
1969
Film
Passion of Love
Colonel
1981
Film
Medea
Creonte
1969
Film
The Berlin Affair
Werner von Heiden
1985
Film
Romulus and Remus
Tazio
1961
Film
Facing Windows
Simone / Davide Veroli
2003
Series
Il segno del comando
George Powell
1971
Film
Senso
Il Marchese Roberto Ussoni
1954
Film
Kolossal - The Magnificent Macisti
1977
Series
Der Ochsenkrieg
Someier
1987
Film
Obsession
Gino Costa
1943
Film
The Shortest Day
Capitano alla finestra (uncredited)
1963
Series
Der Erfolg ihres Lebens
Le comte di Falco
1990
Film
Marco the Magnificent
Nicolo, Marco's Father
1965
Film
Lost Youth
Marcello Mariani
1948
Film
It Happened in Rome
Ugo Parenti
1957
Film
Mark Shoots First
Il Questore Spaini
1975
Film
Saranno uomini
Don Antonio
1957
Film
Story of a Love Affair
Guido
1950
Film
Art of Love
Ovid
1983
Film
Difficult Years
Giovanni Piscitello
1948
Film
Tragic Hunt
Michele
1947
Film
Apparizione
Franco
1943
Film
Asphalt
Éric
1959
Film
Letters of a Novice
Don Paolo Conti
1960
Film
Marguerite of the Night
Valentin
1955
Film
The Cossacks
Tsar Alexander II
1960
Series
Jekyll
John Utterson
1969
Film
Stateline Motel
Fred Norton
1973
Film
The Sisters
Alex
1969
Film
Harlem
Tommaso Rossi
1943
Film
And Agnes Chose to Die
Palita
1976
Film
In the Name of the Law
Il pretore Guido Schiavi
1949
Film
Fabiola
Sebastian
1949
Film
Herod the Great
Ottaviano
1959
Film
Rome 11:00
Nando the Unemployed
1952
Film
Cagliostro
Giacomo Casanova
1975
Film
The Suspicious Death of a Minor
Gaudenzio Pesce
1975
Film
Desire
Nando Mancini
1946
Film
Leathernose
Doctor Marchal
1952
Film
The Giants of Thessaly
Orfeo
1960
Film
I dieci comandamenti
(segment "Ricordati di santificare le feste")
1945
Film
Luchino Visconti
Self (archive footage)
2002
Film
The Love of a Woman
André Lorenz
1953
Film
The Iron Crown
Arminio / King Licinio
1941
Film
Woman Trouble
Paolo Bertoni
1948
Film
A Husband for Anna
Andrea Grazzi
1953
Film
Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita
Self (archive footage)
2021
Film
Four of the Thundering Jet
Maggiore Montanari
1955
Film
The Gates of Heaven
The blind youth
1945
Film
Listen, Let's Make Love
Tassi
1968
Film
The Kiss
Eugenio Dazzi
1974
Film
Gold for the Caesars
Pro-consul Caius Cornelius Maximus)
1963
Film
Wolves in the Abyss
Comandante
1959
Film
Goddess Of Love
Prassitele
1957
Film
Affairs
Count Valery Du Terrail
1989
Film
La cento chilometri
Toccaceli
1959
Film
Sins of Rome
Spartacus
1953
Film
Christmas at Camp 119
Nane, il veneziano
1947
Film
At the Edge of the City
Avv. Roberto Martini
1953
Film
A Day in the Life
Luigi Monotti
1946
Film
Nights of the Teddy Boys
Constantino's Father
1959
Film
From Night to Dawn
Vergiotti
1992
Film
Il segreto delle tre punte
Massimo Dal Colle
1952
Film
Cavalcata selvaggia
Lorenzo
1960
Film
Vortice
Dr. Guido Aureli
1953
Film
Behind Closed Shutters
Ingegnere Roberto
1951
Film
Sul ponte dei sospiri
Marco Spada
1953
L'Amore Dopo
Ing. Staino
1993
Film
I pirati della Malesia
Tremal-Naik
1941
Film
Mafia alla sbarra
1963
Film
La bestia humana
Pedro Sandoval
1957
Film
Fatalità
Vincenzo Masi
1947
Land der Sehnsucht
1950
Film
The Mysterious Mr. Van Eyck
Friend of Charles
1966
La tua donna
Sandro Ademari
1954
Film
A Pilot Returns
Lieutenant Gino Rossati
1942
Film
Idoli controluce
Ugo Sanfelice
1965
Film
Fugitive in Trieste
Fred Nolan
1952
Film
La coppia
Guido
1969
Film
La Bohème
The Old Pretender / Featuring
1988
Film
The Voracious Ones
Olmi
1973
Film
My Body With Anger
Gabriele
1972
Un reietto delle isole
Tom Lingard
1980
Film
Lieutenant Giorgio
Tenente Giorgio Biserta
1952
Film
La trovatella di Pompei
Guglielmo Curti
1957
Film
Shamed
Rocco
1947
Film
Disperato addio
dottor Andrea Pitti
1955
Der Kardinal - Der Preis der Liebe
Donato
2000
Film
The Head of a Tyrant
Holofernes
1959
Film
La famiglia Brambilla in vacanza
Marco Sassoli
1941
Film
L'Ultimo Aereo per Venezia
Marcello Masini
1977
Film
Dora Nelson
Enrico
1939
Film
Altura
Stanis Archena
1949
Film
Duel Without Honor
Carlo
1950
Film
Le due tigri
Tremal-Naik
1941
Film
La carne e l'anima
Andrea
1945
Un bel dì vedremo
Emilio Venditti
1996