Rossano Brazzi


Rossano Brazzi was an Italian actor, director and screenwriter. He was known for playing roles that typified the suave, romantic leading man archetype, both in his native country and in Hollywood.
Brazzi trained as a stage actor and was a matinee idol of Italian cinema, before moving to Hollywood in the early 1950s. He was propelled to international fame with his role in the English-language film Three Coins in the Fountain, followed by leading male roles in David Lean's Summertime, opposite Katharine Hepburn, as well as film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific.
His other notable English-language films include The Barefoot Contessa, The Story of Esther Costello, opposite Joan Crawford, Count Your Blessings, Light in the Piazza, and The Italian Job. He also wrote and directed several films in his native Italy, sometimes using the pseudonym Edward Ross.

Early life

Brazzi was born in Bologna, Italy, the son of Maria Ghedini and Adelmo Brazzi, an employee of the Rizzoli shoe factory. He was named after Rossano Veneto, where his father was stationed during his military service in World War I. Brazzi attended San Marco University in Florence, Italy, where he was raised from the age of four. He was a lawyer before becoming an actor and made his film debut in 1939.

Career

Italian Film Star

Early Italian roles included Tosca, The Hero of Venice, The King's Jester, A Woman Has Fallen and We the Living with Alida Valli.
Brazzi was in Girl of the Golden West, a Western, The Gorgon, and the biopic Maria Malibran. He made Back Then in Germany.
After the war, Brazzi was in The Black Eagle, The Great Dawn, Fury, Bullet for Stefano, The Courier of the King , and The White Devil. There was also the biopic Eleonora Duse.
Brazzi moved to Hollywood and was cast as the professor in Little Women. Back in Italy he made Volcano with Anna Magnani, The Fighting Men, and Romanzo d'amore.
This was followed by The Black Crown, Tragic Spell, Revenge of Black Eagle, The Mistress of Treves, The Woman Who Invented Love, Milady and the Musketeers, They Were Three Hundred, Son of the Hunchback, Guilt Is Not Mine, and Prisoner in the Tower of Fire.

Hollywood Star

Brazzi made another Hollywood film Three Coins in the Fountain, partly shot in Italy, which was a huge success. He was cast in a key role in The Barefoot Contessa opposite Ava Gardner.
Brazzi starred in Angela, Barrier of the Law, and The Last Five Minutes then did another English language movie, Summertime with Katharine Hepburn.
After Il conte Aquila he made some British movies, Loser Takes All, and The Story of Esther Costello then went to Hollywood for Interlude with June Allyson, Legend of the Lost with John Wayne and Sophia Loren, South Pacific with Mitzi Gaynor, and A Certain Smile with Joan Fontaine. Brazzi did Count Your Blessings with Deborah Kerr at MGM.

Personal life

Marriages and relationships

In 1940, Brazzi married baroness Lidia Bertolini to whom he was married until her death from liver cancer in 1981. The couple had no children. However, he did father a son, George Llewellyn Brady, from a relationship with 20-year-old Llewella Humphreys, the daughter of American mobster Murray Humphreys. Llewella Humphreys later changed her name to Luella Brady, an anglicization of Brazzi. In 1984, Rossano Brazzi married Ilse Fischer, a German national, who had been the couple's housekeeper for many years. Originally from Düsseldorf, Fischer had met Brazzi as an infatuated fan in Rome at the age of twenty-four. This marriage was also childless.
Eccentricities
Brazzi was known in film production circles for a number of strange traits, including his preference for ordering off-menu and his love of karaoke. He was often referred to among contemporaries by his nickname Merlion.

Death

Brazzi died in Rome on Christmas Eve 1994, aged 78, from a neural virus.

Selected filmography

  • Il destino in tasca
  • Piccolo hotel
  • Processo e morte di Socrate as Simmia
  • Bridge of Glass as comandante Mario Marchi
  • Kean as Edmund Kean
  • Ritorno as Michele Donato, alias Mac Dynar
  • La fuerza bruta as Fred
  • Tosca as Mario Cavaradossi
  • The Hero of Venice as Guido Fuser, suo figlio
  • The King's Jester as Il re Francesco Iº
  • A Woman Has Fallen as Roberto Frassi
  • We the Living as Leo Kovalenski
  • Girl of the Golden West as William / Manuel
  • The Gorgon sa Lamberto Finquinaldo
  • I due Foscari as Jacopo Foscari
  • Piazza San Sepolcro
  • Maria Malibran as Carlo de Beriot
  • Back Then as Pablo, Radrennfahrer und Clown
  • Il treno crociato as Il tenente Alberto Lauri
  • Silenzio, si gira! as Andrea Corsi
  • The Ten Commandments
  • La Resa di Titì as Guido, il diplomatico
  • La casa senza tempo as Capitano Paolo Sivera
  • Paese senza pace as Tita Nane
  • Malìa as Cola, cognato di Jana
  • Black Eagle as Vladimir Dubrowskij
  • La monaca di Monza
  • The Great Dawn as Renzo Gamba
  • Fury as Antonio
  • Bullet for Stefano as Stefano Pelloni
  • The Courier of the King as Julien Sorel
  • The White Devil as Prince André Mdwani as Il diavolo bianco
  • Eleonora Duse as Arrigo Boito
  • I contrabbandieri del mare as Mario
  • Little Women as Professor Bhaer
  • Volcano as Donato
  • The Fighting Men as Saro Costa
  • Romanzo d'amore as Enrico Toselli
  • The Black Crown as Andrés
  • Tragic Spell as Pietro
  • Revenge of Black Eagle as Vladimir Dubrovskij
  • The Mistress of Treves as Sigfrido, conte di Treviri
  • The Woman Who Invented Love as Conte Grilli
  • Milady and the Musketeers as Conte de la Fere aka Athos
  • They Were Three Hundred as Volpintesta
  • Son of the Hunchback as Philippe de Lagardère
  • Guilt Is Not Mine as Carlo Rocchi
  • Prisoner in the Tower of Fire as Cesare Borgia
  • Carne de horca as Juan Pablo de Osuna
  • C'era una volta Angelo Musco as The story-teller
  • La Chair et le Diable as Giuseppe Guardini
  • Three Coins in the Fountain as Georgio Bianchi
  • La contessa di Castiglione as Le comte de Cavour
  • The Barefoot Contessa as Count Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini
  • Angela as Nino
  • Barrier of the Law as Lt. Mario Grandi
  • The Last Five Minutes as Dino Moriani
  • Summertime as Renato de Rossi
  • Il conte Aquila as Conte Federico Confalonieri
  • Faccia da mascalzone
  • Loser Takes All as Bertrand
  • The Story of Esther Costello as Carlo Landi
  • Interlude as Tonio Fischer
  • Legend of the Lost as Paul Bonnard
  • South Pacific as Emile De Becque
  • A Certain Smile as Luc Ferrand
  • Count Your Blessings as Charles Edouard de Valhubert
  • Siege of Syracuse as Archimede
  • Austerlitz as Lucien Bonaparte
  • Mondo cane as Himself
  • Light in the Piazza as Signor Naccarelli
  • Rome Adventure as Roberto Orlandi
  • Redhead as Fabio
  • Three Fables of Love as Leo
  • Dark Purpose as Count Paolo Barbarelli
  • La ragazza in prestito as Mario Menacci
  • Instant Love – Claudio DeSantis
  • The Battle of the Villa Fiorita as Lorenzo
  • Un amore as Antonio Dorigo
  • The Christmas That Almost Wasn't as Phineas T. Prune
  • The Bobo as Carlos Matabosch
  • La ragazza del bersagliere as Fernando Moschino
  • Per amore... per magia... as Il narratore
  • Woman Times Seven as Giorgio
  • Gli altri, gli altri... e noi
  • King of Africa as Dr. Hamilton
  • Criminal Affair as Ross Simpson
  • Krakatoa, East of Java as Giovanni Borghese
  • Il diario segreto di una minorenne
  • Psychout for Murder as Brigoli
  • The Italian Job as Beckerman
  • Vita segreta di una diciottenne
  • The Adventurers as Baron de Coyne
  • Intimità proibita di una giovane sposa as Adolfo Rogano
  • Trittico as Andrea, the Surgeon
  • Mister Kingstreet's War as Major Bernadelli
  • Vivi ragazza vivi! as padre di Barbara
  • Drummer of Vengeance as The Sheriff
  • Master of Love as Lorenzo del Cambio
  • The Great Waltz as Tedesco
  • Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks as Count Frankenstein
  • Giro girotondo... con il sesso è bello il mondo
  • Dracula in the Provinces as Dr. Paluzzi
  • Gli angeli dalle mani bendate
  • Season for Assassins as Father Eugenio
  • Political Asylum as Ambassador Lara
  • Hawaii Five-O as Stavrik
  • Caribia
  • Mr. Too Little as Zabo The Great
  • Catherine and I as Arthur
  • Champagne... e fagioli as Narrator
  • Omen III: The Final Conflict as DeCarlo
  • Anche i ladri hanno un santo
  • Il paramedico as Augusto Pinna
  • The Far Pavilions
  • Hart to Hart as Pastori
  • Fear City as Carmine
  • Final Justice as Don Lamanna
  • Formula for a Murder as Dr. Sernich
  • The Third Solution as Marini
  • Fatal Frames – Fotogrammi mortali as Dr. Lucidi