Oscar Profile #246: Marcello Mastroianni

Born September 28, 1924 in Fontana Liri, Lazlo, Italy, Marcello Mastroianni soon moved with his family to Turin and then Rome. He made his film debut as an extra in 1939’s Marionettte at the age of 14. His first starring role was in 1951’s The Accusation aka The Charge Is Murder. He became a major star in Mario Monicelli’s 1958 megahit Big Deal on Madonna Street, which was not released in the U.S. until November, 1961, seven months after the U.S. release of Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita which made him an international superstar.

The year after La Dolce Vita, Mastroianni starred opposite Jeanne Moreau in Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte and the following year starred in perhaps his greatest role, as the Italian director patterned after Fellini in 8 1/2. In between he starred in Pietro Germi’s Divorce Italian Style, a satire on the state of Italy’s lack of a divorce law, which earned him the first of his three Oscar nominations. He remains the only thespian to have been nominated three times for performances in foreign language films. Sophia Loren, Liv Ullmann, Isabelle Adjani, Javier Bardem and Marion Cotillard have two each.

Mastroianni’s major films of the mid-1960s included Mario Monicelli’s The Organizer, Vittorio De Sica’s Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and Marriage Italian Style both opposite Sophia Loren, Monicelli’s Casanova ‘70 opposite Virna Lisa and Elio Petri’s The 10th Victim opposite Ursula Andress.

Mastroianni had married actress Flora Carabella with whom he had a daughter, Babara, born in 1951. He and Carabella separated in 1968 due to his numerous infidelities including affairs with several of his leading ladies. In 1968 he began a three year relationship with Faye Dunaway, his co-star in De Sica’s A Place for Lovers. She left him in 1971 after he repeatedly refused to divorce Carabella. He then began a four year relationship with Catherine Deneuve with whom he had a daughter, actress Chiara Mastroaianni, born in 1972. He then began a relationship with Italian filmmaker Anna Maria Tato that lasted until his death.

The actor made three films in the 1970s with Sophia Loren, his most frequent co-star, De Sica’s Sunflower, Dino Risi’s A Priest’s Wife and Ettore Scola’s A Special Day for which he received his second Oscar nomination. In the 1980s he won acclaim for Mario Bellochio’s Henry IV, Fellini’s Ginger and Fred and Nikita Mikhalkov’s Dark Eyes for which he received his third Oscar nomination,

The 1990s started out well Mastroianni Giuseppe Tornatore’s Everybody’s Fine but then came roles in two poorly received Hollywood films, A Fine Romance opposite Julie Andrews and Used People opposite Shirley MacLaine. He rebounded with his appearance opposite Loren in Robert Altman’s ensemble comedy, Ready to Wear. His last film, Manoel de Oliveira’s Voyage to the Beginning of the World was released posthumously.

Marcello Mastroianni died of pancreatic cancer on December 19, 1996. At his bedside were his Deneuve, Tato and his two daughters.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

LA DOLCE VITA (1960), directed by Federico Fellini

Several Italian Actresses, among them Anna Magnani, Silvano Mangano, Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren had become international superstars in the 1940s and 50s but no Italian actor had ever achieved the same level of success until Mastroianni starred as the journalist covering the Roman idle rich in La Dolce Vita. The film was not only a great success in its own right, it increased the already popular tourist industry in Rome where hordes of American tourists went seeking “the good life” which in actuality never existed – it was a figment of Fellini’s imagination.

The Trevi Fountain in which Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg share the film’s most iconic moment, was symbolically turned off and draped in black as a tribute to Mastroianni after his death.

8 1/2 (1963), directed by Federico Fellini

Fellini at this point had directed seven films and contributed portions to two others, so this was to be his eighth and a half movie. He had no idea where he would go with it. There was no script, but his genius found a way. Equaling Fellini’s brilliance, Mastroianni played the fictional director of a film reflecting on his life, past, present and future. His character and performance were patterned after Fellini. Anouk Aimee as his wife and Claudia Cardinale as his mistress had the principal female roles. Juliet of the Spirits two years later was the female version. Broadway’s Nineand the subsequent 2009 film version was a musical based on 8 1/2

THE ORGANIZER (1964), directed by Mario Monicelli

Mastroianni gave perhaps his best character portrayal as the professor cum union organizer in turn-of-the-century Turin in this Italian How Green Was My Valley.

Released in Italy as I Compagni (Comrades), the film is also known as The Strikers, which is the best name for the film which is based on a real-life textile workers strike in which the factory workers sought to reduce their workday from fourteen hours to thirteen. The U.S.-U.K. releases title puts Mastroianni’s character front and center, but it’s really an ensemble piece in which his character is one of several important ones. The ending is a real heartbreaker.

A SPECIAL DAY (1977), directed by Ettore Scola

Mastroianni played against type as a suicidal homosexual antifascist who has just lost his job as a radio announcer. His frequent co-star, Sophia Loren, also plays against type, albeit not for the first time, as a put-upon housewife. The two are neighbors who meet on the day in 1938 that Hitler comes to Rome to Meet Mussolini.

What makes the day special is not the meeting between Hitler and Mussolini but the meeting between these two people as played by these two great stars at the peak of their prowess.

Mastroianni became only the second thespian to have been nominated for an Oscar for a foreign language performance up to that time, the first having been Loren. He would become the first, and so far only, one to have been nominated three times for a foreign language performance ten years later for Dark Eyes.

EVERYBODY’S FINE (1990), directed by Giuseppe Tornatore

Remade by Hollywood two decades later as a vehicle for Robert De Niro, the original is, as is usually the case, the better option. Mastroianni plays an elderly man who spends his days talking to his deceased wife, who decides to take a trip by train to visit his three sons and two daughters spread out all over Italy. It’s sort of an Italian Tokyo Story. The only family member with whom he really connects is his teenage grandson who he learns is about to make him a great-grandfather.

The film’s most poignant scene is his encounter with the still radiant Michele Morgan, 70 then, 95 now.