Italy on Thursday mourned actor
Gabriele Ferzetti, one of the most popular protagonists of stage
and screen.
Elegant, urbane and well-spoken, Ferzetti became one of
Italy's most prominent international stars of the 1950s and 60s.
Born in Rome in March 1925, he made his cinema debut in
1942, aged just 17, alongside Dorsi Duranti in The Countess of
Castiglione directed by Flavio Calzavara.
After World War II he concentrated primarily on his stage
career, and was chosen by Luchino Visconti to perform in
Shakespeare's As You Like It in 1948.
He had his first major cinema breakthough in 1953, when he
was cast alongside Gina Lollobrigida in Mario Soldati's The
Wayward Wife (La Provinciale).
This remains one of his most famous films, alongside
Michelangelo Antonioni's The Girl Friends (1955) and The
Adventure (1960), and Elio Petri's We Still Kill the Old Way
(1967).
He acted in over 100 films, including overseas productions
such as Three Rooms in Manhattan, directed by Marcel Carné in
New York in 1965 and Sergio Leone's 1968 western epic Once Upon
a Time in the West, in which he played opposite Henry Fonda and
Charles Bronson
His versatility as an actor saw him perform in a variety of
roles and genres from historical films to comedies, from
adventure films to sentimental dramas.
In theatre he acted alongside the likes of Lea Padovani and
Anna Proclemer and he won the prestigious Ubu prize for his
performance in August Strindberg's The Dance of Death in the
early 1990s.
Ferzetti died on Wednesday night in Rome at the age of 90.
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