Rossano Brazzi

For a number of years Brazzi personified the romantic aristocrat in nearly three dozen Italian movies.  He appeared briefly on the stage as well.  His Italian films never provided him with the worldwide acclaim he was seeking or thought he deserved.  It wasn't until the late 40s when he came to the U.S. that he made a name for himself.

Born in Bologna, Italy in 1916, his mother smothered him with love and attention after her two older children had died very young.  Like most Italian men, he dearly loved his mama in return.  He thrived on his mother's attention which he considered the earliest step in his quest for more.  He learned poetry as a youngster and would recite it for family and friends, soaking up the praise.  In school he sang and starred in an operetta and then for the rest of his school years, including college, he appeared in plays.  He also excelled in a number of sports.

He attended San Marco University with the intent of becoming a lawyer.  His father, who ran a shoe repair shop and later owned a leather factory, instilled in his son a love of government and law and order.  His family suffered tremendously under Mussolini's fascist government which Brazzi quickly grew to hate.

He became friends with acting students in college who encouraged him to continue acting while studying for his law degree.  After graduation, at his father's request, he went to Rome to serve an apprenticeship with a lawyer who was a family friend.  But he linked up with a repertory company and his future was cemented.

He made his film debut in 1939 and quickly rose to matinee idol status in Italy but by night he was a resistance fighter.  (It's been said his parents were killed by the fascists but other sources say they died of natural causes.)  In 1940 he wed a baroness and their marriage would last 40 years.

After the war his popularity in Italy waned and he accepted an offer by producer David O. Selznick to appear in American films.  He said it was a dreadful experience, complicated by the fact that he barely spoke English.  He returned to Italy and then came another offer from the states.

MGM director Mervyn LeRoy had spotted him in one of Brazzi's few Italian films to play stateside and hired him to play the strong and sympathetic Professor Bhaer opposite June Allyson in Little Women (1949).  It was not a large role and he didn't come into the story until near the end but he made the impression LeRoy was hoping he would.

He returned to Italy the following year to appear in Volcano opposite fiery Anna Magnani.  She plays a prostitute who is banished to her island birthplace.  Brazzi plays a procurer who falls in love with her sister.  It's the only one of his Italian films I have ever seen and Magnani was the reason why.

Here's the funny thing about his American film career... many of those movies were made in Italy!  It starts with Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) about three American women and their romances.  Of the three, Brazzi's pairing with Jean Peters had the most going for it.  He was sixth-billed but this film was so popular that his career picked up more speed.

He is most impressive in The Barefoot Contessa (1954) as the impotent count married to sexy movie star Ava Gardner.  Director Joseph Mankiewicz was too afraid to handle it as gay as originally
planned so impotent he became.

I think Summertime (1955) is an enchanting love story of middle-aged folks.  Katharine Hepburn plays a spinster visiting Venice who falls for a local merchant.  Their relationship is written with immense charm and truth and both actors, of course, step up to the plate.  Hepburn is superb in the role and it points out what often happened with Brazzi... he was overshadowed by his leading ladies.
What I observed, too, and perhaps it worked for the picture, is that neither actor had much, if any, sex appeal.

Brazzi was being touted as the new Latin Lover, which he said was ridiculous.  Guys liked Fernando Lamas, Ricardo Montalban, even Gilbert Roland, were far more qualified for that title than Brazzi.  While his face was perfectly attractive, it didn't have that special something that drove the ladies wild.  His acting was always very controlled, displays of emotion or even much temperament were never part of his agenda.  Are we sure he's Italian?  The Latin Lover tag hurt him and his chances for great success.

Interlude (1957) feels like Summertime except that it's in Munich and it doesn't come close to being as good.  Funny but Brazzi and June Allyson had lost all the chemistry they might have had in Little Women and this film sunk.

And so did Legend of the Lost (1957) and for the same reason... John Wayne and Sophia Loren had zero chemistry together.  Surely that was largely Wayne's fault since Loren was all about chemistry.  The story has Brazzi hiring Wayne to take him to Timbuktu to search for treasure and Loren tags along.  No one cared.

In the South Pacific with Emile and Nellie

Let's be candid.  If not for Brazzi's next film, he would hardly be a footnote in American films.  Without batting an eye, let's agree that
South Pacific (1958) was the best American film he ever made and probably the best of all his films.  And yet, I thought he was miscast... not awful, just miscast.  Why was an Italian playing a Frenchman?  As I've said before, was Louis Jourdan busy?  There's also Brazzi's lack of sex appeal and even the fact that his singing voice was dubbed by the magnificent Giorgio Tozzi.   And the actor's two prior films were flops.  I don't get it but hey, bravo for him.  He was the star of one of my favorite musicals ever.

Well, slap me down if he doesn't play another Frenchman in A Certain Smile (1958).  What the hell?  It's kinda corny as his married character becomes involved with his nephew's girlfriend when it should have been more titillating.  Joan Fontaine is well-cast as his wife and Johnny Mathis appears onscreen to sing the title song.

Count Your Blessings (1959) sounds like the last flick in which Brazzi is a philandering Frenchman (omg, somebody stop him) whose wife is Deborah Kerr.  What kind of a louse would cheat on her?  Perhaps that's why this didn't gel.  One thing that was not counted was profits.

And now, it's 1962 and I'm starting to love movies featuring people remotely my age and Brazzi happened to star in two of them.  Well, actually they were costarring roles as those youthful love stories were at the center of attention.

I reviewed Light in the Piazza (1962) earlier and it was amore, amore, amore from the moment I first saw it.  This affection wasn't because of Brazzi or George Hamilton but rather due to Yvette Mimieux, Olivia de Havilland, a heartfelt story, glorious color and the wonders of Rome.

With Suzanne Pleshette in Rome Adventure

I was mad about Rome Adventure (1962) when it was first released and while that has lessened some over the years, I still regard it as spending time with dear old friends.  Brazzi plays the older lover of Suzanne Pleshette and she is in Rome looking for love.  Things change when she runs into Troy Donahue (onscreen and off, doncha know).  It has a popular song, Al Di La, and is a virtual travelogue of the magnificent city.

After 1962 his film roles became routine and he returned to Italy.  The glory days were over.  He did a lot of Italian and European television and occasionally made a film that attracted some attention in the U.S.  There is no such thing as my not liking a Maureen O'Hara movie but The Battle of the Villa Florita (1965) was not a hit.  She is a married English woman who runs off to Italy to be with her lover (Brazzi) and her children follow with the intent to break it up.  I thought it had its moments.

The Italian Job (1969) is the last good movie he made.  The Michael Caine caper film was a solid hit although Brazzi's role was fairly small.  Also in 1969 he accepted a part in a nighttime American soap opera, The Survivors.  It had a big-name cast but was too expensive and short-lived.  After the series ended, he returned to Italy to resume his career there but it never picked up the steam he had enjoyed in American films nor during his 10 years in Italy before coming to America.  He worked mainly in television.

He was grief-stricken, even suicidal, when his beloved wife passed away in 1981.  Three years later, however, he married a German actress with whom he was happy for the rest of his life.

We heard very little of Brazzi in the states after 1969 but in 1984 he made international headlines for an incident he would have preferred hadn't happened.  He was arrested and indicted along with 36 others for international weapons and drug smuggling but the charges were later dropped.

In 1994 Rossano Brazzi was working on still another film when he was hospitalized for a viral infection.  He died on Christmas Eve at the age of 78. 




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