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- Vincent Schiavelli, selected in 1997 by Vanity Fair as one of the best character actors in America, had made over 120 film and television appearances. He studied acting at NYU's Theatre Program. Aside from his acting career, Vincent was the author of three cookbooks, and has written numerous articles on food for magazines and newspapers. In 2001, he received the James Beard Journalism Award.
- She never found the international cross-over fame destined for Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida, and most American audiences would not recognize her name, but voluptuous, visually stunning Eleonora Rossi Drago certainly made male hearts pulsate in Europe with her scores of princesses and temptresses throughout Italian cinema of the 1950s and 1960s. She eventually earned respect as a fine actress and elevated her status in the films of Luigi Comencini and Michelangelo Antonioni, among others. But for the most part, she gamely played the sex card in a career that stretched a bit past two decades.
She was born Palmira Omiccioli (some sources also list Palmina as her first name, near Genoa, Italy (Columbus' birthplace) on September 23, 1925, the daughter of a sea captain. She married at the age of 17 and bore a daughter Fiorella but the marriage (to a gentleman named Rossi) did not last. She then found work as a department store mannequin and began actually designing couture clothing herself. An arresting beauty, she started competing in beauty contests and wound up in fourth place in the "Miss Italy" pageant. Gina Lollobrigida came in third. The attention lured her to films.
She moved to Rome and in 1949 began receiving small movie roles while using her married name of Rossi. Her first two big breaks came with Behind Closed Shutters (1951) [Behind Closed Shutters] with Massimo Girotti, a melodrama about prostitution, and the highly controversial Sensualita (1952) [Sensuality] in which Marcello Mastroianni and Amedeo Nazzari violently quarrel over her affections. The earlier picture was directed by Luigi Comencini and considered a strong success. The highly impressed Comencini went on to cast Eleonora as a female lead in his next film La tratta delle bianche (1952) [The White Slave Trade or Girls Marked for Danger], another tawdry melodrama about prostitution that co-starred Vittorio Gassman and also showcased the up-and-coming Sophia Loren.
It was obvious that Rossi-Drago had the makings of a bosomy sex goddess but she constantly strove to better her acting reputation in classier material. In 1955 she won critical notice on stage as Helena in Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" opposite Marcello Mastroianni as Astrov. Her finest hour in films came about that same year with the release of Antonnini's The Girlfriends (1955) [The Girlfriends], in which she starred in the rags-to-riches story of a humble girl who becomes a respected owner of a fashion salon and the social class struggle therein. Among her other standout roles in the 1950s were Kean: Genius or Scoundrel (1957), again opposite Vittorio Gassman, who also directed, and the award-winning Italian/French co-production Violent Summer (1959), in which she played a married woman approaching middle age who surrenders herself to a younger man (Jean-Louis Trintignant) during the summer of '43 and height of fascism. The film earned her the "Silver Ribbon" award, voted for by Italian film journalists, and the "best actress" award at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina.
In order to work continuously, however, she was forced to take on provocative roles of lesser quality -- roles that usually emphasized her physical attributes or enhanced the scenery around her. While Sophia Loren had a Carlo Ponti to promote her internationally, Rossi-Drago was less fortunate. By the 1960s she was relegated to such unmemorable adventures, horrors and sword-and-sand spectacles as David and Goliath (1960) [David and Goliath] with Orson Welles playing King Saul; The Carpet of Horror (1962) [The Carpet of Horror]; and Sword of the Conqueror (1961) [Sword of the Conqueror] opposite a raping and pillaging Jack Palance. Elsewhere, she was pretty much overlooked in the epic ensemble as Lot's wife in John Huston's mammoth failure The Bible in the Beginning... (1966).
Things did not improve into the decade and after appearing with Helmut Berger in the critically-panned retelling of Dorian Gray (1970) and Pier Angeli in the pedestrian Sergio Bergonzelli giallo In the Folds of the Flesh (1970) [In the Folds of the Flesh], she decided to call it quits. Blending back inconspicuously into mainstream society, she married Sicilian businessman Domenico La Cavera in 1973, and eventually retired to Palermo, Italy. She died at age 82 of a brain hemorrhage on December 2, 2007, and was survived by her second husband and daughter. - Actress
- Additional Crew
Daniela Giordano was born on November 7, 1946 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. Giordano attended school in Milan, Italy, where she lived with her family for ten years before returning to Palermo at age fourteen. Daniela was the winner of several local beauty pageants in her home town of Palermo and, in the wake of winning the 1966 Miss Italia contest at age nineteen, finished in second place in the 1967 Miss Europe contest. Giordano went on to work as a model prior to acting in her first movie in 1967. Among the notable directors that Daniela acted in films for are Mario Bava, León Klimovsky, Alfonso Brescia, Luigi Cozzi, Sergio Martino, and Paul Naschy.- Daniela Rocca was a beautiful and talented model, actress and writer, born in one of the poorest districts of Sicily, who found fleeting success in Italian cinema. Although she had envisioned herself as a writer, she entered a beauty pageant, was elected Miss Catania in 1953, and after competing for the Miss Italy title, she made her screen debut in 1954 in «La Luciana».
Rocca was cast in horror films as Riccardo Freda's «Caltiki, the Immortal Monster» (co-directed by Mario Bava) and international productions as Abel Gance's «Austerlitz», but her attractive looks made her ideal for the péplum genre, appearing in Fernando Cerchio's «Judith and Holofernes», Vittorio Cottafavi's «The Legions of Cleopatra», Bruno Vailati's «The Giant of Marathon» (also co-directed by Bava), Vittorio Sala's «The Queen of the Amazons» and most notably in the Italian-American co-production co-directed by Raoul Walsh and Bava, «Esther and the King», in which she played adulterous Queen Vashti, who dances to the court and ends her performance baring her breasts as an act of defiance to King Ahasuerus, and to the prudish film industries of those days.
The following year director Pietro Germi decided to make «Divorce Italian Style», a comedy denouncing the prohibition of divorce by Italian society, while being indulgent to crimes of passion. Germi gave Rocca the role of her career at 24. When she accepted to play an unattractive wife with a mustachioed upper lip, it was seen as an act of great courage for a young symbol of Mediterranean beauty. The movie became an international hit, she won the Best Actress award at the Avellino Neorealism Film Festival, and the movie received the Academy Award for Best Screenplay.
But Rocca had fallen hopelessly in love with Germi and when he rejected her, she attempted suicide. Although she continued to appear in films, by 1963 she was considered unreliable and received no film offers. She appeared in Fred Zinnemann's «Behold a Pale Horse» in 1964, but fell into a state of severe depression. She recovered in a mental institution, in Palermo. In 1978 Rocca gave and interview to Marco Bellocchio for the documentary «The Cinema Machine», in which the actress claimed she had been abandoned by her former colleagues. "They said I was crazy, when all I had was a nervous breakdown. They sent me off to the hospital. It took a long time for the doctors to realize that I wasn't mad and let me go."
Daniela Rocca spent the last years of her life near Catania, at a retirement home where she wrote the books «Secret Agent with License to Live», «Lawyer for Rent», «Condemned to Death», «Psychoanalysis, Dreams, and Fantasies Hidden in the Mind», and the poetry collection «Ara».
A tragic symbol of short-lived fame in cinema and of unrequited love, Rocca was the object of two literary homages: the Argentine poet Juan Gelman dedicated a poem to the actress called «Theory About Daniela Rocca», and on April 12, 2016 Domenico Trischitta opened his drama in two acts «Quick Sands» in the Musco theater in Catania, based on her life. - Salvatore Schillaci is an Italian football player, forward of the Italian national team in 1990-1991. Top scorer and best player in the 1990 World Cup. Schillaci began playing for his hometown amateur team, Amat Palermo. He then signed a contract in 1982 with Sicilian club Messina, where he played until 1989 and showed scoring ability, also becoming the top scorer in Serie B in the 1988/1989 season with 23 goals. Before the 1990 home World Cup, Schillacci was not considered as Italy's main striker, but, having scored a goal in his first match as a substitute, he subsequently established himself in the squad and became the tournament's top scorer with six goals. After the World Cup, he played only 8 matches for the national team and scored one goal. The striker last played for the Italian national team on September 25, 1991. From 1989 to 1992, Schillaci played for Juventus F.C., after which he moved to Inter Milan. In 1994, he went to the Japanese club Jubilo Iwata, for which he played until 1997, where he ended his career.
- Writer
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Benedict Fitzgerald was born on 9 March 1949 in New York, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for The Passion of the Christ (2004), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and A Good Man Is Hard to Find. He was married to Krenz Mason. He died on 17 January 2024 in Marsala, Sicily, Italy.- Enzo Andronico was born on 13 May 1924 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. He was an actor, known for Isabella, Duchess of the Devils (1969), Emergency Squad (1974) and Password: Kill Agent Gordon (1966). He died on 26 September 2002 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy.
- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Domenico Modugno was born on 9 January 1928 in Polignano a Mare, Puglia, Italy. He was an actor and composer, known for The Batman (2022), Money Talks (1997) and Casino (1995). He was married to Franca Gandolfi. He died on 6 August 1994 in Lampedusa, Pelagie Islands, Sicily, Italy.- Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos DE Laclos was a French novelist, official, Freemason and army general, best known for writing the epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangerous (Dangerous Liaisons) (1782). A unique case in French literature, he was for a long time considered to be as scandalous a writer as the Marquis DE Sade or Restif DE La Bretonne. He was a military officer with no illusions about human relations, and an amateur writer; however, his initial plan was to "write a work which departed from the ordinary, which made a noise, and which would remain on earth after his death"; from this point of view he mostly attained his goals with the fame of his masterwork Les Liaisons dangerous. It is one of the masterpieces of novelist literature of the 18th century, which explores the amorous intrigues of the aristocracy. It has inspired many critical and analytic commentaries, plays and films.
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Tano Cimarosa was born on 1 January 1922 in Messina, Italy. He was an actor and director, known for Cinema Paradiso (1988), Reflections in Black (1975) and Uomini di parola (1981). He died on 24 May 2008 in Messina, Sicily, Italy.- Marcello Perracchio was born on 16 January 1938 in Modica, Sicily, Italy. He was an actor, known for Detective Montalbano (1999), La piovra (1984) and The Flower in His Mouth (1975). He died on 29 July 2017 in Ragusa, Sicily, Italy.
- Music Artist
- Composer
- Writer
Franco Battiato was born on 23 March 1945 in Jonia, Sicily, Italy. He was a music artist and composer, known for Lost Love (2003), Children of Men (2006) and Musikanten (2005). He died on 18 May 2021 in Milo, Sicily, Italy.- Aldo Puglisi was born on 12 April 1935 in Catania, Sicily, Italy. He was an actor, known for Seduced and Abandoned (1964), Marriage Italian Style (1964) and When Women Lost Their Tails (1972). He died on 19 July 2024 in Catania, Sicily, Italy.
- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Special Effects
Ennio Guarnieri was born on 12 October 1930 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He was a cinematographer, known for La Dolce Vita (1960), La Traviata (1982) and Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972). He died on 1 July 2019 in Licata, Sicily, Italy.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
Turi Ferro was born on 10 January 1921 in Catania, Sicily, Italy. He was an actor and director, known for Malicious (1973), Mastro Don Gesualdo (1964) and Melissa (1966). He was married to Ida Carrara. He died on 10 May 2001 in Catania, Sicily, Italy.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Guido Leontini was born on 21 March 1927 in Catania, Sicily, Italy. He was an actor, known for Tough Guys (1974), Il marchese di Roccaverdina (1972) and The Valachi Papers (1972). He died on 26 April 1996 in Catania, Sicily, Italy.- Luigi Maria Burruano was born on 22 April 1945 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. He was an actor and writer, known for One Hundred Steps (2000), Il ritorno di Cagliostro (2003) and Liberi (2003). He died on 10 September 2017 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy.
- Aeschylus is considered by some as the greatest writer ever to walk the face of earth. He was born to a noble family in Elefsinia, a few miles from Athens. The greatest festival in his hometown was the Elefsinia Mysteria, a dramatic imitation of nature's awakening in spring. Aeschylus is the founder of the classic Ancient Greek drama and was the first to clad his actors in impressive costumes on stage. His heroes were greater than life, always decent, even in their most dramatic moments. In his plays he was questioning everything, including the gods. People would walk for days to see his new play. He was leading an unhappy life, however, constantly seeking answers to the mysteries of life and death. He spent his last few years in the western Greek colonies of Sicily.
- Director
- Writer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Franco Indovina was born in 1932 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy. He was a director and writer, known for L'Avventura (1960), Giuochi particolari (1970) and Catch As Catch Can (1967). He died on 5 May 1972 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy.- Maurizio Bologna was an actor, known for Boris Giuliano: Un poliziotto a Palermo (2016), E noi come stronzi rimanemmo a guardare (2021) and At War with Love (2016). He died on 20 September 2024 in Palermo, Sicily, Italy.
- Producer
- Production Manager
- Actor
Born Prince Alessandro Tasca di Cutò into an aristocratic family of Norman origin, cousin of the author Prince Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, author of the classic novel The Leopard, adapted into a film by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster and Alain Delon. Alessandro Tasca's father, a womanizing Socialist politician known as 'The Red Prince', devoured the family's fortune to realize his ideals. Tasca emigrated to New York and worked as a car mechanic, a bootlegger's driver, a cashier for the Saratoga racetrack and a runner on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during the Wall Street crash of 1929. After the outbreak of WW2, Alessandro returned to Rome and was assigned to the Ministry of Propaganda where he met Ezra Pound. Alessandro was later interned in an English-run POW camp in Southern Italy. After the war Tasca, was hired to work in the film industry to ease Anglo-American productions through the horrors of Italian bureaucracy. In 1946 he met Orson Welles who was to become a lifelong friend. Over the next forty years he worked on several of Welles' films both in Europe and later on in America, among others Chimes at Midnight and Don Quixote. Tasca also worked with some of the great names of international cinema over his long career: John Huston, Joseph Losey, Vittorio De Sica, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Humphrey Bogart, Peter Ustinov, Gina Lollobrigida, and many others. Tasca's singular adaptability was observed by the distinguished Italian writer, Luigi Barzini of The Italians fame, who dubbed Tasca the 'bourgeois' prince in an essay on his cousin Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.- Francesco Sineri was born on 24 June 1912 in Biancavilla, Sicily, Italy. He was an actor, known for Suonno d'ammore (1955), Agguato sul mare (1955) and The Big Family (1973). He was married to Sara Micalizzi. He died on 27 December 2005 in Catania, Sicily, Italy.
- Giancarlo Prati was an actor, known for Atlantis Interceptors (1983), Man on Fire (1987) and Mafia Junction (1973). He died on 21 July 1988 in Mazara del Vallo, Sicily, Italy.
- Giacinto Ferro was born on 22 November 1943 in Palazzolo Acreide, Sicily, Italy. He was an actor, known for The Passion of the Christ (2004), Corleone (2007) and Piazza Fontana: The Italian Conspiracy (2012). He died on 25 December 2016 in Valverde, Catania, Sicily, Italy.
- Mario Pupella was an Italian actor, theatre director and art director who was born Castelvetrano, Sicily, in 1945. He debuted at a very young age in "Henry the fifth" by Luigi Pirandello, and then became main actor and director in many theater plays by Plauto, Terenzio, Ben Jonson, Molière and several big authors from the 1900s. In cinema, he debuted as the protagonist of the film "Angela" by Roberta Torre. He also took part in two seasons of the tv series "L'onore e il rispetto" by Salvatore Samperi, playing the role of don Patrono. In "La siciliana ribelle" by Marco Amenta he was the antagonist of the judge Borsellino. He also played the role of Don Mimì in the film "La matassa" with Ficarra and Picone. In 2012, he was co-star in Carlo Fusco's film "Vento di Sicilia".