
Massimo Girotti
Massimo Girotti (18 May 1918 – 5 January 2003) was an Italian film actor whose career spanned seven decades. Born in Mogliano, in the province of Macerata, Girotti developed his athletic physique by swimming and playing polo. While studying engineering, he attracted the attention of Mario Soldati, who offered him a small part in the film Dora Nelson (1939), but it was not until later, in Alessandro Blasetti's La corona di ferro (The Iron Crown) (1941) and Roberto Rossellini's Un Pilota ritorna (A Pilot Returns) (1942), that he began to make an impression as a serious actor. In 1943 came a turning point in his career when Luchino Visconti cast him opposite the torrid Clara Calamai in Ossessione (Obsession), an earlier adaptation of the same novel on which Hollywood's The Postman Always Rings Twice is based. The film marked, in a sense, the birth of Italian neo-realism. Some of his notable post-war films include Caccia tragica (The Tragic Hunt) (1946) by Giuseppe De Santis and In nome della legge (1949) (In the Name of the Law) by Pietro Germi. In 1950, he starred opposite Lucia Bosé in Michelangelo Antonioni's first full-length feature, Cronaca di un amore (Story of a Love Affair) (1950). In 1953, he played Spartacus in an Italian epic film known in the US as Sins of Rome and then, returned to work again for Visconti, in Senso (1954), giving perhaps the finest performance of his career. In the years which followed, he appeared in many mainly Italian films for directors such as Lizzani, Bolognini, Vittorio Cottafavi, Lattuada, but it was not until 1968 that he once again played a role worthy of his talents - that of the father in Pasolini's Teorema (Theorem) with Terence Stamp and Silvana Mangano. Two years later, Pasolini cast him as Creonte opposite Maria Callas in his Medea (1969). In 1972, he was in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris. That same year he made a rare appearance in a horror film when he agreed to a supporting role in Baron Blood as a favor to its director Mario Bava. He continued to act in character roles for the next thirty years. Some of the films he appeared in have been notable, including Joseph Losey's Monsieur Klein (1976) with Alain Delon and Jeanne Moreau, Art of Love (1983) by Walerian Borowczyk, the 1985 television miniseries Quo Vadis?, Roberto Benigni's Il mostro (The Monster) (1994). He died in Rome of a heart attack after having just completed his last film, Ferzan Özpetek's La Finestra di fronte (Facing Windows) (2003). Source: Article "Massimo Girotti" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
112 acting credits
Acting · 112

Last Tango in Paris
1972

Quo Vadis?
1985

Origins of the Mafia
1976

The Monster
1994

Christopher Columbus
1985

Theorem
1968

The French Revolution
1989

The French Revolution
1989

Obsession
1944

The Innocent
1976

The Shortest Day
1963

Mr. Klein
1976

The Witches
1967

Der Ochsenkrieg
1987

The Red Tent
1969

Il segno del comando
1971

Medea
1969

Romulus and Remus
1961

Senso
1954

Passion of Love
1981

Der Erfolg ihres Lebens
1990

The Berlin Affair
1985

Jekyll
1969

Baron Blood
1972

Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita
2021

Desire
1946

Facing Windows
2003

Marco the Magnificent
1965

The Suspicious Death of a Minor
1975

Fabiola
1949

Story of a Love Affair
1950

Herod the Great
1959

Vortice
1953

Mark Shoots First
1975

And Agnes Chose To Die
1976

Imperial Venus
1962

It Happened in Rome
1957

Listen, Let's Make Love
1968

Gold for the Caesars
1963

Difficult Years
1948

Rome 11:00
1952

Art of Love
1983

Kolossal - The Magnificent Macisti
1977

Wolves in the Abyss
1959

Apparizione
1943

In the Name of the Law
1949

Cagliostro
1975

The Iron Crown
1941

Asphalt
1959

Leathernose
1952

A Pilot Returns
1942

Luchino Visconti
2002

The Year Long Road
1958

Stateline Motel
1973

Tragic Hunt
1947

The Cossacks
1960

Goddess Of Love
1957

Cavalcata selvaggia
1960

Preludio d'amore
1946

Idoli controluce
1965

The Sisters
1969

The Kiss
1974

Christmas at Camp 119
1947

The Gates of Heaven
1945

La Bohème
1988

Letters of a Novice
1960
Un bel dì vedremo
1996

Four of the Thundering Jet
1955
La tua donna
1954

At the Edge of the City
1953

La famiglia Brambilla in vacanza
1941

The Love of a Woman
1953

The Head of a Tyrant
1959

A Day in the Life
1946

Woman Trouble
1948

From Night to Dawn
1992

Lieutenant Giorgio
1952

Saranno uomini
1957

My Body With Anger
1972

A Husband for Anna
1953

Altura
1949

The Giants of Thessaly
1960

Nights of the Teddy Boys
1959

La trovatella di Pompei
1957

Behind Closed Shutters
1951

Fatalità
1947

Affairs
1989

La cento chilometri
1959

Lost Youth
1948

Sins of Rome
1953

Marguerite of the Night
1955
Un reietto delle isole
1980

The Mysterious Mr. Van Eyck
1966

Fugitive in Trieste
1952
Land der Sehnsucht
1950
L'Amore Dopo
1993

I dieci comandamenti
1945

Il segreto delle tre punte
1952
Der Kardinal - Der Preis der Liebe
2000

La carne e l'anima
1945

Duel Without Honor
1950

La bestia humana
1957

The Voracious Ones
1973

Harlem
1943

Le due tigri
1941

La coppia
1969

Disperato addio
1955

Sul ponte dei sospiri
1953

I pirati della Malesia
1941

Mafia alla sbarra
1963

L'Ultimo Aereo per Venezia
1977

Dora Nelson
1939