Biography for
Vittorio Gassman More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

1 September 1922, Genoa, Liguria, Italy

Date of Death

29 June 2000, Rome, Italy (heart attack)

Nickname

Il Mattatore
The Sir Laurence Olivier of Italy

Height

6' 1½" (1.87 m)

Mini Biography

Vittorio Gassman studied theatre in his youth and was quite a good basketball player. He debuted on stage in 1943 and soon felt home in all classical theatre works. Since 1946 he also worked at the movies and his first big role there was the criminal in Riso amaro (1949). This fixed him to his main parts: The ambigous gentleman inflicting pain and pleasure at the same time. He also participated in the Italian comedies and in American movies but the latter with only minor success. As a homage to his passion for the theatre he directed a cinema version of the play Kean (1956).

IMDb Mini Biography By: Volker Boehm

Spouse

Diletta D'Andrea	(1972 - 29 June 2000) (his death) 1 child
Shelley Winters	(28 April 1952 - 1954) (divorced) 1 child
Nora Ricci	(1944 - 1952) (divorced) 1 daughter Paola Gassman

Trade Mark

Powerful, versatile voice

Trivia

Father of Alessandro Gassman, with Juliette Mayniel in 1965.

The standard joke on him was that he had such an interesting, flexible voice (and such an outstanding acting ability) that he could have made everything he read entertaining and intense. In mid-90s, a satirical show on Italy national TV gave him a 2 minutes space (named "Gassman Legge", literally "Gassman Reads") where he just "acted" few lines from banal, utterly non-poetic texts, e.g. the Yellow Pages, a blood test report, a telephone bill, the classifieds page in a local newspaper and so on. The segment was a success.

Founded and ran for years one of the most select acting schools.

Shares his birthday with actress Yvonne De Carlo.

Became widely popular with Luchino Visconti's theater company, performing in important plays such as Tennessee Williams' "Un tram che si chiama desiderio" (A Streetcar Named Desire) or William Shakespeare's "Rosalinda".

In his public appearances, he often criticized moderated cultural positions and gained some enemies in the world of art for his frank judgments.

Studied acting at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica in Rome.

Born to a father from a wealthy family of German origins and a mother from Pisa.

Son-in-law of actors Renzo Ricci and Margherita Bagni.

Personal Quotes

No-one should die. That's the only mistake God ever made.

"Men don't understand anything about women and women don't understand anything about men. And it's better that way."

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