Oscar Profile #324: Anna Magnani

Born March 7, 1908 to Marina Magnani and an unknown father in Rome, Italy, Anna Magnani was raised in poverty by her maternal grandparents with whom her mother left her. Although it was first said that Magnani’s father was Egyptian, she later claimed that he was from Calabria, Italy, although she never knew his name.

Magnani was considered a “plain, frail child with a forlornness of spirit” by her grandparents who compensated by pampering her with food and clothes. Growing up, she is said to have felt more at ease around “more earthly” companions, often befriending the “toughest kid on the block.” This trait carried over into her adult life when she proclaimed, “I hate respectability. Give me the life of the streets, of common people.”

At 17, Magnani went on to study at the Eleonora Duse Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome for two years. To support herself, Magnani sang in nightclubs and cabarets; leading to her being dubbed “the Italian Edith Piaf”.

On stage, Magnani was considered an “outstanding theatre actress” in such plays as Anna Christie and The Petrified Forest. She made her film debut in an uncredited role in 1928, but didn’t begin her screen career in earnest until a few years later.

In 1933, Magnani was acting in experimental plays in Rome when she was discovered by Italian filmmaker Goffredo Alessandrini. one of the first Italian filmmakers to make use of sound. The two married the same year, and he subsequently directed her in her first major film role. It wasn’t until Magnani starred in 1941’s Teresa Venerdì for Vittorio De Sica that she became a recognizable screen star. Separated from Alessandrini, she had an affair with actor Massimo Serato that produced her only child, Luca Magnani, in 1942.

Magnani’s international breakthrough came in Roberto Rossellini’s landmark 1945 film, Rome, Open City. Although the role was not the most dominant in the film, her performance is unforgettable. She had a much talked about affair with the director, which ended when he met Ingrid Bergman, although the two remained friends throughout her life.

Magnani’s subsequent high-profile films included DeSica’s two-parter, L’Amore: The Human Voice and The Miracle in 1948, playing the leads in both; William Dieterle’s Volcano in 1950; Luchino Visconti’s Bellissima in 1951; Jean Renoir’s The Golden Coach in 1953; Daniel Mann’s film of Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo in 1955, her first in English, for which she won an Oscar; George Cukor’s Wild Is the Wind in 1957, also in English, for which she received a second Oscar nomination; Sidney Lumet’s film of Tennessee Williams’ The Fugitive Kind in 1959, her third in English; Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Mamma Roma in 1962; Stanley Kramer’s The Secret of Santa Vittoria in 1969, her last in English and 1972’s Roma, in which she has a cameo as herself.

Anna Magnani died of pancreatic cancer on September 26, 1973 at 65. Survivors include her son, Luca, and Luca’s daughter, actress Olivia Magnani.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

ROME, OPEN CITY, directed by Roberto Rossellini (1945)

Magnani’s performance dominates the first half of Rossellini’s masterpiece, the first of Italian neorealist films that dominated the Golden Age of Italian Cinema after World War II with its shot on location stories about the poor and working class. Filmed in the waning day of the war, Magnani plays the pregnant fiancé of an atheist who is about to be married by the local priest. They are caught having hidden a resistance fighter overnight and as Magnani runs down the street after the fiancé who has been captured by the Nazis, she is shot in one of the most iconic scenes in film history. International stardom was instantly hers.

THE ROSE TATTOO, directed by Daniel Mann (1983)

Tennessee Williams wrote his 1951 play for Magnani, but feeling uncomfortable performing in a play in English, Maureen Stapleton played the role of the Italian immigrant widow on Broadway opposite Eli Wallach. Magnani felt comfortable enough speaking English to make the film opposite Burt Lancaster. Her transformation from a depressed, self-pitying widow wallowing in grief over the husband she adored to a flirtatious, earthy woman falling in love with truck driver Lancaster is screen acting at its best. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about Lancaster, who is egregiously way over the top. It earned her an Oscar on her first nomination.

WILD IS THE WIND, directed by George Cukor (1957)

Personally, I think Magnani’s Oscar nominated performance here is her best in English. Unfortunately, not many people know the film as it has never been released on video in the U.S., but has been shown on TCM and is available for streaming. This time she’s paired with Anthony Quinn and Anthony Franciosa, who are almost her match, though no one really is. She plays the sister of Quinn’s late wife who becomes his replacement wife, only to fall in love with his adopted son (Francisoa) when he neglects her. The story is similar to They Knew What They Wanted, also missing on video, but it’s dramatically superior.

MAMMA ROMA, directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1962)

There are those who think that Magnani’s 1951 film, Bellissima, directed by Luchino Visconti, is her best in Italian, but I think she’s ten times better here as the retired prostitute who moves into a respectable Rome neighborhood with her country-reared teenage son
(Ettore Garofolo) and does all she can to protect him and herself from outside forces. Why this film was so controversial that it couldn’t be shown in the U.S. until 1995, I don’t understand. There’s nothing here that would have been out of place with anything else show in America at least since 1966. At least we have access to it now.

THE SECRET OF SANTA VITTORIA, directed by Stanley Kramer (1969)

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association loved this film, giving it a Golden Globe for Best Comedy or Musical and nominating both Anthony Quinn and Magnani for their performances. AMPAS wasn’t as kind, nominating it only for Best Editing and Best Score. Magnani’s first English language film since 1959’s The Fugitive Kind, it is best remembered for the fight scenes between Quinn as the mayor of an Italian village tasked with hiding a million bottles of wine from the Nazis, and Magnani as his volatile wife. Legend has it that their on-screen fighting, both verbal and physical, was an extension of their off-screen battles.