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 Gassmans debut was in Milan in 1942 with Alda Borelli in Niccodemis 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 damore while only one year later he appeared in five films In 1948 he played in Riso amaro It was with Luchino Viscontis 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 cofounded and codirected the Teatro dArte Italiano producing the first complete version of Hamlet in Italy followed by rare works such as Senecas Thyestes and Aeschyluss 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 CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia
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