Wednesday, December 13, 2023
HomeNewsMarisa Pavan, Oscar-nominated actress in ‘The Rose Tattoo,’ dies at 91

Marisa Pavan, Oscar-nominated actress in ‘The Rose Tattoo,’ dies at 91


Marisa Pavan, a number one woman of Nineteen Fifties Hollywood who rose to prominence on the heels of her twin sister, the actress and singer Pier Angeli, and acquired an Oscar nomination for enjoying Anna Magnani’s delicate younger daughter in “The Rose Tattoo,” died Dec. 6 at her dwelling in Gassin, a city on the French Riviera. She was 91.

Her household confirmed the dying, based on her biographer, Margaux Soumoy, however didn’t give a selected trigger.

Though she appeared in solely 9 American motion pictures, all in a span of lower than a decade, the Italian-born Ms. Pavan was extensively praised for bringing glamour and class to her performances as waifs, ingénues and regal younger girls, at occasions whereas showing reverse a number of the greatest names in mid-century cinema.

After making her debut in John Ford’s World Conflict I movie remake “What Worth Glory” (1952), because the French love curiosity of an ill-fated Marine (Robert Wagner), Ms. Pavan appeared with Alan Ladd within the western “Drum Beat” (1954) and rose to stardom at 23 with “The Rose Tattoo” (1955), primarily based on a Tony Award-winning play by Tennessee Williams.

The movie, which starred Magnani as a volcanic grieving widow and Burt Lancaster because the truck driver who romances her, was nominated for eight Academy Awards and gained three. Ms. Pavan, who performed the daughter Rosa Delle Rose, a 15-year-old falling in love for the primary time, misplaced in the most effective supporting actress class to her castmate Jo Van Fleet — honored for her efficiency in one other movie, “East of Eden” — however made it to the stage to simply accept the most effective actress prize on behalf of Magnani, who was in Italy the night time of the ceremony.

“It was probably the most tough movie I ever made,” Ms. Pavan mentioned in a 2001 interview, later revealed on the web site Movie Discuss. Magnani, a fellow Italian, “didn’t converse a phrase of English,” she recalled, and realized her traces phonetically whereas battling with director Daniel Mann and cinematographer James Wong Howe, who gained an Oscar for the movie. (One brilliant spot: working with Williams, who would prepare dinner for the forged once they have been taking pictures on location close to his dwelling in Key West, Fla. Ms. Pavan mentioned the playwright taught her how “to hear, and the best way to make a very good spaghetti sauce.”)

Ms. Pavan went on to star as Catherine de Medici within the costume drama “Diane” (1956), during which she vied with the title character (Lana Turner) for the love of Prince Henri (Roger Moore). She additionally performed an Italian lady who had a wartime affair with a U.S. Military captain (Gregory Peck) in “The Man within the Grey Flannel Go well with” (1956), and was the love curiosity of an ex-cop (Tony Curtis) investigating a priest’s homicide in “The Midnight Story (1957).

By then, she had a movie resume to match that of her sister, who starred in Hollywood motion pictures together with “Teresa” (1951) and “Any individual Up There Likes Me” (1956), reverse Paul Newman, whereas additionally making headlines by way of her romance with James Dean and her four-year marriage to actor and crooner Vic Damone.

“The place Anna was lighthearted and spontaneous, Marisa was considerate and introspective,” Damone wrote in a memoir, “Singing Was the Straightforward Half.” “That got here by way of in her performing as effectively, which tended to be quieter and extra underplayed, although nonetheless transferring.” (Angeli died at 39 in 1971, from a barbiturate overdose.)

Ms. Pavan appeared in solely two extra motion pictures earlier than turning to tv and stage work, successfully abandoning her Hollywood profession after the discharge of the biblical epic “Solomon and Sheba” (1959), starring Yul Brynner and Gina Lollobrigida.

The movie’s authentic main man, Tyrone Energy, had died partway by way of the manufacturing, devastating Ms. Pavan. She was additionally pissed off by clashes with the filmmakers, whom she accused of abruptly chopping down her function as Abishag, a consort to King David, and of irreparably damaging her status after she threatened to stroll out on the manufacturing.

Ms. Pavan mentioned she was uninterested in being pushed round by filmmakers and studio executives, though she would later work on American tv, guest-starring on exhibits together with “Marvel Lady” and “Hawaii 5-O.”

“Once I arrived in Hollywood, I used to be just a little little bit of a insurgent as a result of I believed that what I needed to supply, they needed to take, with out altering my hair or my nostril,” she recalled within the Movie Discuss interview. “It was not in my nature to compromise. They did change my sister; they made her up like a pinup woman. I might put on a wig to play a sure half, however they may not change me in life.”

Maria Luisa Pierangeli was born in Cagliari, on the Italian island of Sardinia, on June 19, 1932. Her mom was a homemaker, and her father was an architect whose work took the household to Rome. Ms. Pavan mentioned that in the course of the metropolis’s Nazi occupation in World Conflict II, they sheltered a Jewish common within the Italian army, and that she later adopted his surname as her stage identify.

Her twin sister acquired into show-business first, as a teen. Born Anna Maria Pierangeli, she was reportedly found by the actor and filmmaker Vittorio De Sica whereas strolling down Through Veneto in 1948.

Ms. Pavan’s father died two years later. Quickly after, in early 1951, the household got here to Hollywood — the twins have been joined by their a lot youthful sister, Patrizia, who additionally turned an actress — the place Ms. Pavan realized English by way of courses at UCLA. She began performing with encouragement from Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli, who turned her agent and later produced lots of the James Bond movies.

In 1956, she married Jean-Pierre Aumont, a dashing French movie star who had beforehand married Dominican actress Maria Montez, dated Grace Kelly and been engaged to Hedy Lamarr. Ms. Pavan and Aumont appeared collectively within the Revolutionary Conflict movie “John Paul Jones” (1959) and later carried out onstage, singing at New York supper golf equipment and dancing in a touring manufacturing of the musical “Gigi.”

The couple quietly divorced seven years into their marriage. However in a twist out of “The Guardian Lure,” they have been reportedly persuaded to maneuver again in collectively by their two younger sons, who “begged them to return to the identical family,” based on the information company United Press Worldwide.

The couple remarried in 1969 — Aumont later claimed that “the kids didn’t know that their mother and father have been divorced within the first place” — and remained collectively in France till Aumont’s dying in 2001.

Survivors embody her sons, Jean-Claude and Patrick Aumont; her sister Patrizia; six grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Ms. Pavan appeared in French filmmaker Jacques Demy’s “A Barely Pregnant Man” (1973), starring Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni, and performed the spouse of Kirk Douglas in “Arthur Hailey’s the Moneychangers” (1976), an American miniseries. However her most rewarding function remained one among her first: Catherine de Medici, in “Diane.”

The filmmakers had been skeptical that she might pull off the tough-minded half after beforehand enjoying characters who have been candy and harmless, based on Ms. Pavan. “What was vital to me was the battle to get the half,” she mentioned. “While you get an element, and at last you’re acknowledged, it’s the most joyful second you’ll be able to have as an actress.”

RELATED ARTICLES

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular

Recent Comments