Vittorio Gassman

Acting

Vittorio Gassman

Born 1922-09-01 · Genoa, Liguria, Italy

Vittorio Gassman Knight Grand Cross OMRI (Italian pronunciation: [vitˈtɔːrjo ˈɡazman]; born Gassmann; 1 September 1922 – 29 June 2000), popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian actor, director and screenwriter. He is considered one of the greatest Italian actors, whose career includes both important productions as well as dozens of divertissements. Gassman's debut was in Milan, in 1942, with Alda Borelli in Niccodemi's La Nemica (theatre). He then moved to Rome and acted at the Teatro Eliseo joining Tino Carraro and Ernesto Calindri in a team that remained famous for some time; with them he acted in a range of plays from bourgeois comedy to sophisticated intellectual theatre. In 1946, he made his film debut in Preludio d'amore, while only one year later he appeared in five films. In 1948 he played in Riso amaro. It was with Luchino Visconti's company that Gassman achieved his mature successes, together with Paolo Stoppa, Rina Morelli and Paola Borboni. He played Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' Un tram che si chiama desiderio (A Streetcar Named Desire), as well as in Come vi piace (As You Like It) by Shakespeare and Oreste (by Vittorio Alfieri). He joined the Teatro Nazionale with Tommaso Salvini, Massimo Girotti, Arnoldo Foà to create a successful Peer Gynt (by Henrik Ibsen). With Luigi Squarzina in 1952 he co-founded and co-directed the Teatro d'Arte Italiano, producing the first complete version of Hamlet in Italy, followed by rare works such as Seneca's Thyestes and Aeschylus's The Persians. In cinema, he worked frequently both in Italy and abroad. He met and fell in love with American actress Shelley Winters while she was touring Europe with fiancé Farley Granger. When Winters was forced to return to Hollywood to fulfill contractual obligations, he followed her there and married her. With his natural charisma and his fluency in English he scored a number of roles in Hollywood, including Rhapsody with Elizabeth Taylor and The Glass Wall before returning to Italy and the theatre. On 29 June 2000, Gassman died of a heart attack in his sleep at his home in Rome at the age of 77. He was buried at Campo Verano. Description above from the Wikipedia article Vittorio Gassman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia

Acting credits

Sleepers poster
7.6

Two gangsters seek revenge on the state jail worker who during their stay at a youth prison sexually abused them. A sensational court hearing takes place to charge him for the crimes.

Sleepers

1996

War and Peace poster
6.6

The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.

War and Peace

1956

We All Loved Each Other So Much poster
8.3

Three partisans bound by a strong friendship return home after the war, but the clash with everyday reality puts a strain on their bond.

We All Loved Each Other So Much

1974

Barabbas poster
6.9

Epic account of the thief Barabbas, who was pardoned for his crimes and spared crucifixion when Pilate offered the Israelites a choice to pardon Barabbas or Jesus. Struggling with his spirituality, Barabbas goes through many ordeals leading him to the gladiatorial arena, where he tries to win his freedom and confront his inner demons, ultimately becoming a follower of the man who was crucified in his place.

Barabbas

1961

Django & Django: Sergio Corbucci Unchained poster
7.0

A tribute to Italian filmmaker Sergio Corbucci (1926-90), presented by American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino.

Django & Django: Sergio Corbucci Unchained

2021

Sharky's Machine poster
6.2

Police officer Tom Sharky gets busted back to working vice, where he happens upon a scandalous conspiracy involving a local politician. Sharky's new 'machine' gathers evidence while Sharky falls in love with a woman he has never met.

Sharky's Machine

1981

Woman Times Seven poster
6.3

Seven mini-stories of adultery: a widow misbehaves at her husband's funeral, a wife turns to streetwalking for revenge, a prudish girl surprises, a neglected wife vies for her husband's attention, a fight over a dress, a death pact, and a detective revealed as a jealous husband's spy.

Woman Times Seven

1967

1001 Nights poster
5.2

Sheherazade has been married to a ruler who wants many wives, but only one at a time. Consequently, as soon as he has bedded them, he has them put to death. In most retellings, the girl staves off this unfortunate conclusion by putting off the connubial event for a thousand and one nights, telling irresistible stories instead. In this one, she gets hold of a magic lamp.

1001 Nights

1990

Bitter Rice poster
7.5

Francesca and Walter are two-bit criminals in Northern Italy, and, in an effort to avoid the police, Francesca joins a group of women rice workers. She meets the voluptuous peasant rice worker, Silvana, and the soon-to-be-discharged soldier, Marco. Walter follows her to the rice fields, and the four characters become involved in a complex plot involving robbery, love, and murder.

Bitter Rice

1949

Big Deal on Madonna Street poster
8.1

Best friends Peppe and Mario are thieves, but they're not very good at it. Still, Peppe thinks that he's finally devised a master heist that will make them rich. With the help of some fellow criminals, he plans to dig a tunnel from a rented apartment to the pawnshop next door, where they can rob the safe. But his plan is far from foolproof, and the fact that no one in the group has any experience digging tunnels proves to be the least of their problems.

Big Deal on Madonna Street

1958

Abraham poster
7.1

Rather than choosing a great leader or king, God chooses Abraham, an elderly shepherd from Mesopotamia, as the way to establish his Covenant with mankind... A man of great faith, Abraham continues to believe in God even when He seems to have abandoned him.

Abraham

1993

Morceaux de Cannes poster
2.0

We thought we'd seen, read, and heard everything there was to see about the Cannes Film Festival, from the glitz and gossip to the scandals and censorship. And yet, Emmanuel Barnault's "Morceaux de Cannes" (Pieces of Cannes), by this leading expert on Italian and French cinema, convinces us otherwise. The third largest event in the world (after the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup) reveals its secrets only sparingly, as this film attests. The result of passionate research in the INA archives, these 52 minutes, without interviews or voice-over narration, string together rare and sometimes previously unseen footage. Taken together, they tell a surprising, original, and heartwarming story of the Festival. On the beach, on a street corner, in a restaurant, or in the privacy of a hotel room, these forgotten archives summon the greatest filmmakers, actors, and actresses of the last seventy years, from Jean Cocteau to David Lynch, for an anthology of the Festival's history.

Morceaux de Cannes

2021

The Nude Bomb poster
5.3

When KAOS develops a bomb that can dissolve all clothing, Maxwell Smart is brought in to foil the evil plot.

The Nude Bomb

1980

Il Sorpasso poster
8.2

Roberto, a shy law student in Rome, meets Bruno, a forty-year-old exuberant, capricious man, who takes him for a drive through the Roman and Tuscany countries in the summer. When their journey starts to blend into their daily lives though, the pair’s newfound friendship is tested.

Il Sorpasso

1962

The Great War poster
8.1

Italy, 1916. Oreste Jacovacci and Giovanni Busacca are called, as all the Italian youths, to serve the army in the WWI. They both try in every way to avoid serving the army.

The Great War

1959

Quintet poster
5.0

During a future ice age, dying humanity occupies its remaining time by playing a board game called Quintet. For one small group, this obsession is not enough. They play the game with living pieces, and only the winner survives.

Quintet

1979

Beautiful But Dangerous poster
5.9

Lina, a music hall singer, has fallen in love with Sergei, a Russian prince. Maestro Doria, who gives her voice lessons and who hopes to make her his mistress, takes her to Paris where she becomes the star of the "Folies-Plastiques".

Beautiful But Dangerous

1955

Seduction Of The South poster
5.3

Based on the events from the Italian civil war. In 1860's, a member of a guerrilla force captures a colonel from the opposing army and later leads one of the sides to victory.

Seduction Of The South

1961

Dear Father poster
6.4

In Caro papá, Dino Risi is telling the story of the decadent lifestyle, and dysfunctional family, of a wealthy businessman (played to perfection by Risi's favorite leading man, Vittorio Gassman). Risi paints his portrait against a backdrop of an Italy where the new permissiveness has run rampant, traditional socio-cultural values have been usurped by consumerism, and the streets have become an open battleground for politically extremist groups (the '70s were dubbed "The Years of Lead" due to the great number of terrorist acts, and politically motivated assassinations).

Dear Father

1979

Scent of a Woman poster
7.4

An army cadet accompanies an irascible, blind captain on a week-long trip from Turin to Naples.

Scent of a Woman

1974

The New Monsters poster
7.0

A collection of dark-humoured vignettes, including tales of a cardinal with a liberal congregation, a motorist and a hitchhiker, mentally challenged tramps, parents contemplating their daughter's participation in a pornographic film, and a conniving husband.

The New Monsters

1977

Double Cross poster
6.7

A businessman is wrongly accused and convicted for the murder of his associate.

Double Cross

1951

We Are Cinema poster
9.5

An Italian documentary about Italian cinema.

We Are Cinema

2021

The Monsters poster
7.4

The myths of the sixties are satirized in 20 episodes.

The Monsters

1963

Behind the camera

Kean: Genius or Scoundrel poster
7.3

England, first half of the 19th century. Edmund Kean is a celebrated theatre actor, notorious for his tumultuous private life. He is in love with the beautiful countess Koefeld, wife of the Danish ambassador, to the consternation of his friend, the Prince of Wales. He is also hounded by Anna Damby, who wants to become an actress to escape a marriage to Lord Mewill.

Kean: Genius or Scoundrel

1957

Kean: Genius or Scoundrel poster
7.3

England, first half of the 19th century. Edmund Kean is a celebrated theatre actor, notorious for his tumultuous private life. He is in love with the beautiful countess Koefeld, wife of the Danish ambassador, to the consternation of his friend, the Prince of Wales. He is also hounded by Anna Damby, who wants to become an actress to escape a marriage to Lord Mewill.

Kean: Genius or Scoundrel

1957

Without Family poster
7.3

Released from the orphanage at the age of thirty, a man dreams of finding his mother.

Without Family

1972

Without Family poster
7.3

Released from the orphanage at the age of thirty, a man dreams of finding his mother.

Without Family

1972

Alibi poster
6.0

Three friends meeting after the absence of one of them for 15 years out of the country. This sudden gathering give them the opportunity to examine their life, to criticize one another on their achievements.

Alibi

1969

Alibi poster
6.0

Three friends meeting after the absence of one of them for 15 years out of the country. This sudden gathering give them the opportunity to examine their life, to criticize one another on their achievements.

Alibi

1969

L'altro enigma poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

L'altro enigma

1988

L'altro enigma poster
9.0

No synopsis available yet.

L'altro enigma

1988

Edipo Re poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Edipo Re

1977

Di padre in figlio poster
6.0

No synopsis available yet.

Di padre in figlio

1982

Di padre in figlio poster
6.0

No synopsis available yet.

Di padre in figlio

1982

Amleto poster
7.8

No synopsis available yet.

Amleto

1955