Renzo Ricci (27 September 1899 – 20 October 1978) was an Italian stage and

film actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), lit ...

. He was also a noted

theatre director A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors a ...

. Ricci played the title role in

Roberto Rossellini Roberto Gastone Zeffiro Rossellini (8 May 1906 – 3 June 1977) was an Italian film director, producer, and screenwriter. He was one of the most prominent directors of the Italian neorealist cinema, contributing to the movement with films such ...

's 1961 film ''

Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as ''Gioxeppe Gaibado''. In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as ''Jousé'' or ''Josep''. 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, patr ...

''.Bondanella, Peter. ''The Films of Roberto Rossellini''. Cambridge University Press, 1993. p.165.

Life and career

Born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

, Ricci started acting in a local dramatic society while still being a student of the Istituto tecnico, and made his professional debut in 1915, with the stage company held by Emma Gramatica. Mainly active on stage, he was a member of several companies, notably the

Giorgio Strehler Giorgio Strehler (; ; 14 August 1921 – 25 December 1997) was an actor, Italian opera and theatre director. Biography Strehler was born in Barcola, Trieste; His father, Bruno Strehler, was a native of Trieste with family roots in Vienna and di ...

's company at the Piccolo Teatro in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 ...

. In 1957 he won the San Genesio Prize for his performance in

Eugene O'Neill Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Nobel Prize in Literature, literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama tech ...

's '' Long Day's Journey Into Night''. He was married with actress Margherita Bagni with whom he had a daughter, Eleonora "Nora", also an actress. After his first wife's death he married his lover, another stage actress, Eva Magni.

Selected filmography

* ''

Before the Jury ''Before the Jury'' (Italian title:''Corte d'Assise'') is a 1931 Italian crime film directed by Guido Brignone and starring Marcella Albani, Lia Franca and Carlo Ninchi. It was made at the Cines Studios in Rome. The film is a precursor to the lat ...

'' (1931) * ''

La Wally ''La Wally'' is an opera in four acts by composer Alfredo Catalani, to a libretto by Luigi Illica, first performed at La Scala, Milan, on 20 January 1892. The libretto is based on a hugely successful ' by Wilhelmine von Hillern (1836–1916), ...

'' (1932) *'' Nini Falpala'' (1933) * '' Disturbance'' (1942) * '' Nero and the Burning of Rome'' (1953) * '' Casta Diva'' (1954) * ''

'' (1961) * ''

I am Semiramis ''Io Semiramide'' (AKA: ''I Am Semiramis'', AKA: ''Slave Queen of Babylon'', AKA: ''Duelo de Reyes'') is a 1963 film about Semiramis, a queen of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. It was directed by Primo Zeglio. The legends are in part based on the histori ...

'' (1963) * '' Sandra'' (1965)

References

External links

* 1899 births 1978 deaths Italian male film actors Actors from Florence Italian male stage actors Italian theatre directors 20th-century Italian male actors {{Italy-actor-stub