Wikipedia

Rossano Brazzi

Not to be confused with Rossano Brasi.

Rossano Brazzi (18 September 1916 – 24 December 1994)[1] was an Italian actor. He moved to Hollywood in 1948 and was propelled to international fame with his role in the English-language film Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), followed by the leading male role in David Lean's Summertime (1955), opposite Katharine Hepburn.[2] In 1958, he played the lead as Frenchman Emile De Becque in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. His other notable English-language films include The Barefoot Contessa (1954), The Story of Esther Costello (1957), opposite Joan Crawford, Count Your Blessings (1959), Light in the Piazza (1962), and The Italian Job (1969).

Rossano Brazzi
Brazzi in 1952
Born18 September 1916
Bologna, Kingdom of Italy
Died24 December 1994(1994-12-24) (aged 78)
Rome, Italy
NationalityItalian
OccupationActor
Years active1939–1994
Spouses
  • Lidia Bertolini
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1940; died 1981)​
  • Ilse Fischer
    ​
    (m. 1984)​

Early life

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Brazzi was born in Bologna, Italy, the son of Maria Ghedini and Adelmo Brazzi, an employee of the Rizzoli shoe factory. He was named after Rossano Veneto, where his father was stationed during his military service in World War I. Brazzi attended San Marco University in Florence, Italy, where he was raised from the age of four. He was a lawyer before becoming an actor and made his film debut in 1939.[1][2]

Career

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Italian Film Star

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Early Italian roles included Tosca (1941), The Hero of Venice (1941), The King's Jester (1941), A Woman Has Fallen (1941) and We the Living (1942) with Alida Valli.

Brazzi was in Girl of the Golden West (1942), a Western, The Gorgon (1942), and the biopic Maria Malibran (1942). He made Back Then (1943) in Germany.

After the war, Brazzi was in The Black Eagle (1946), The Great Dawn (1947), Fury (1947), Bullet for Stefano (1947), The Courier of the King (1947), and The White Devil (1947). There was also the biopic Eleonora Duse (1948).

Brazzi moved to Hollywood and was cast as the professor in Little Women (1949). Back in Italy he made Volcano (1951) with Anna Magnani, The Fighting Men (1950), and Romanzo d'amore (1951).

This was followed by The Black Crown (1951), Tragic Spell (1951), Revenge of Black Eagle (1951), The Mistress of Treves (1951), The Woman Who Invented Love (1952), Milady and the Musketeers (1952), They Were Three Hundred (1952), Son of the Hunchback (1952), Guilt Is Not Mine (1952), and Prisoner in the Tower of Fire (1953).

Hollywood Star

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Brazzi made another Hollywood film Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), partly shot in Italy, which was a huge success. He was cast in a key role in The Barefoot Contessa (1954) opposite Ava Gardner.

Brazzi starred in Angela (1955), Barrier of the Law (1955), and The Last Five Minutes (1955) then did another English language movie, Summertime (1955) with Katharine Hepburn.

After Il conte Aquila (1955) he made some British movies, Loser Takes All (1956), and The Story of Esther Costello (1957) then went to Hollywood for Interlude (1957) with June Allyson, Legend of the Lost (1957) with John Wayne and Sophia Loren, South Pacific (1958) with Mitzi Gaynor, and A Certain Smile (1958) with Joan Fontaine. Brazzi did Count Your Blessings (1959) with Deborah Kerr at MGM.

Personal life

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Marriages and relationships

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In 1940, Brazzi married baroness Lidia Bertolini (1921–1981) to whom he was married until her death from liver cancer in 1981. The couple had no children. However, he did father a son, George Llewellyn Brady (born 24 July 1955), from a relationship with 20-year-old Llewella Humphreys (1934–1992), the daughter of American mobster Murray Humphreys. Llewella Humphreys later changed her name to Luella Brady, an anglicization of Brazzi. In 1984, Rossano Brazzi married Ilse Fischer,[3] a German national, who had been the couple's housekeeper for many years. Originally from Düsseldorf, Fischer had met Brazzi as an infatuated fan in Rome at the age of twenty-four.[4] This marriage was also childless.

Eccentricities

Brazzi was known in film production circles for a number of strange traits, including his preference for ordering off-menu and his love of karaoke. He was often referred to among contemporaries by his nickname Merlion.

Death

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Brazzi died in Rome on Christmas Eve 1994, aged 78, from a neural virus.[1]

Selected filmography

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "Rossano Brazzi, Actor, 78; Romantic Leading Man of Films". The New York Times. Associated Press. 27 December 1994. Retrieved 1 April 2014.
  2. ^ a b "'Charming, Carefree, Unrealistic'". Variety. March 26, 1958. p. 3. Retrieved October 7, 2021 – via Archive.org.
  3. ^ Rossano Brazzi Biography
  4. ^ Rossano Brazzi: Portrait of a "Gentleman of the Cinema"
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