Anna Magnani
Date of birth: 1908-03-07
Place of birth: Rome, Italy
Known for: Acting
Also known as: 안나 마냐니
Biography
Anna Magnani (pronounced: mahn-YANEE; 7 March 1908 – 26 September 1973) was an Italian stage and film actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, along with four other international awards, for her portrayal of a Sicilian widow in The Rose Tattoo. Born in Rome to an Egyptian father and an Italian mother, she worked her way through Rome's Academy of Dramatic Art by singing at night clubs. During her career, her only child was stricken by polio when he was 18 months old and remained crippled. She was referred to as "La Lupa," the "perennial toast of Rome" and a "living she-wolf symbol" of the cinema. Time magazine described her personality as "fiery", and drama critic Harold Clurman said her acting was "volcanic". In the realm of Italian cinema, she was "passionate, fearless, and exciting," an actress that film historian Barry Monush calls "the volcanic earth mother of all Italian cinema." Director Roberto Rossellini called her "the greatest acting genius since Eleonora Duse. Playwright Tennessee Williams became an admirer of her acting and wrote The Rose Tattoo specifically for her to star in, a role for which she received her first Oscar in 1955. After meeting director Goffredo Alessandrini she received her first screen role in La cieca di Sorrento (The Blind Woman of Sorrento) (1934) and later achieved international fame in Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945), considered the first significant movie to launch the Italian neorealism movement in cinema. As an actress she became recognized for her dynamic and forceful portrayals of "earthy lower-class women" in such films as The Miracle (1948), Bellissima (1951), The Rose Tattoo (1955), The Fugitive Kind (1960), with Marlon Brando and directed by Sidney Lumet, and Mamma Roma (1962). As early as 1950, Life magazine had already stated that Magnani was "one of the most impressive actresses since Garbo". Description above from the Wikipedia article Anna Magnani, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Movie Credits
Rome, Open City
1945-10-08
In WWII-era Rome, underground resistance leader Manfredi attempts to evade the Gestapo by enlisting
Rossellini Under the Volcano
1998-01-01
A documentary about Roberto Rossellini and the making of his 1950 film "Stromboli."
Rossellini Through His Own Eyes
1993-05-01
Made up almost entirely of archival interviews with Italian film director Roberto Rossellini (with a
The Secret of Santa Vittoria
1970-01-02
During World War II, Italian villagers hide their wine from the German army.
Cinéma et Réalité
1967-01-01
In this documentary, giants of italian cinema such as Rossellini, De Sica, Fellini and Zavattini tal
Teresa Venerdì
1941-11-24
A comedy of errors where floundering pediatrician Pietro takes a job as an orphanage health inspecto
Bellissima
1952-01-04
Film director Blasetti is looking for a little girl for his new movie. Along with other mothers, Mad
L'amore
1948-11-02
L'Amore ('Love') is a 1948 Italian drama anthology film that consists of two parts, The Human Voice
The Fugitive Kind
1960-04-14
Val Xavier, a drifter of obscure origins, arrives at a small town and gets a job in a store run by L
Made in Italy
1965-12-22
A group of Italians take a flight to Sweden: among them there are the tourists, and the immigrants.
The Rose Tattoo
1955-12-12
A grieving widow embarks on a new romance when she discovers her late husband had been cheating on h
Mamma Roma
1962-09-22
After years spent working as a prostitute in her Italian village, middle-aged Mamma Roma has saved e
We, the Women
1953-10-27
Five portraits of actresses in their "common" life, seen as women rather than movie stars.
The Passionate Thief
1960-10-21
On New Year's Eve, a young woman and an out-of-work actor complicate a pickpocket's plans to ply his
Peddlin' in Society
1946-12-21
Thanks to wartime smuggling Gioconda Perfetti, a roman fruit vendor, becomes very rich. She leaves h
The Golden Coach
1952-12-05
A viceroy, a nobleman and a bullfighter court a comedy-troupe actress in 18th-century Peru.
Wild Is the Wind
1957-12-11
A widowed Nevada rancher goes to Italy and marries the sister of his deceased wife and brings her ba
Angelina
1947-11-12
A rowdy woman is so forceful that she outdoes her husband in a loud cry against speculators who refu
Volcano
1950-02-02
An exiled Italian prostitute shields her sister from a deep-sea diver on an island volcano.
The Peddler and the Lady
1943-06-24
Peppino, a fishmonger on Campo de' Fiori, a famous Roman marketplace, works alongside Elide, a green
Assunta Spina
1948-03-10
Assunta, a commoner of Naples, is scarred by her lover Michele for jealousy.
Girlfriend in a Coma
2012-11-26
Girlfriend in a Coma is a documentary that exposes the dire situation of Italian politics and the pr
Full Speed
1934-12-31
A meek professor is swept over his feet by a very vivacious girl.
Josefa's Loot
1963-08-22
Justin, a lyricist by trade, and his friend Pierre, a composer, lead a bohemian life in Paris. Justi
The Blind Woman of Sorrento
1934-04-30
Drama set in the nineteenth century in Sorrento in southern Italy. It is an adaptation of the 1852 n
Tre donne - La sciantosa
1971-09-26
La Sciantosa is part of a project created by writer/director Alfredo Gianetti for the Italian TV. Th
The Last Wagon
1943-12-01
Toto (Aldo Fabrizi), a Roman coachman with an old fashioned horse-drawn carriage who objects to the
Woman Trouble
1948-10-17
Driven by the constant quarrels with his wife and humiliated by a rich Milanese industrialist after
The Awakening
1956-10-17
Directed by the incredibly prolific Mario Camerini, Suor Letizia was released in English-speaking re
Hell in the City
1959-01-29
A young girl comes to prison and experiences the entire prison subculture. The inmates she befriends
Cavalleria
1936-10-23
Umberto Solaro loses the love of his life Speranza, a noble but poor girl who has been forced to mar
Il fiore sotto gli occhi
1944-11-28
Down with Misery!
1945-12-27
The two drivers Giovanni and Gaetano are friends. Gaetano, bold and ruthless, thrives in the black m
L'avventura di Annabella
1943-03-31
The Automobile
1971-10-10
An ex-prostitute, feeling an emptiness in her life, decides to fill it by buying a car.
Tre donne - 1943: Un incontro
1971-10-03
This vehicle for the great actress Anna Magnani was one of the four made for Italian television and
Once Upon a Time... 'Rome, Open City'
2006-05-27
Television documentary about the making of Roberto Rossellini's 1945 film "Rome, Open City".
Anna Magnani - Recitare la verità
2008-03-07
Princess Tarakanova
1938-03-23
A film about the story of princess Élisabeth Tarakanova.
Una lampada alla finestra
1940-02-10
1870
1972-01-07
Rome, 1870. Opponents of the church power are being sent to prison. Some of the exhausted prisoners
The Treasure of His Youth: The Photographs of Paolo Di Paolo
2021-10-23
The life of the legendary Italian photojournalist Paolo Di Paolo through his photographs, which capt
Das Mädchen der Strasse
1928-02-02
A homeless girl is taken in by an engineer. They fall in love.
Red Shirts - Anita Garibaldi
1952-08-15
The story of Giuseppe Garibaldi's 1849 campaign to free Italy from Austrian domination.
La fuggitiva
1941-11-02
In the absence of the biological mother, too busy pursuing her theatrical career, we see the glorifi
Luchino Visconti: Between Truth and Passion
2016-11-15
Forty years after his death, this documentary pays tribute to one of the major filmmakers of Italian
Cinecittà, de Mussolini à la Dolce Vita
2021-05-16
Cinecitta is today known as the center of the Italian film industry. But there is a dark past. The f
We Are Cinema
2021-12-16
An Italian documentary about Italian cinema.
Quei due
1935-01-01
Adventures of two provincial actors looking for anyway done with something to eat. They are joined b
Luck Comes from Heaven
1942-03-26
The merchant Giovanni Illes is tracked down by the debtors, but cannot pay his debts. To save her fa
Unknown Men of San Marino
1948-01-16
A mysterious man, who had lost his memory, arrives in San Marino among other refugees during the Sec
Quartetto pazzo
1945-08-22
Elena invites her former husband Roberto to her country house with the aim of winning him back while
My Name Is Anna Magnani
1980-09-30
Traces the life of Anna Magnani, her creations, her successes, her triumphs, her boycotted career, h
La vita è bella
1943-05-26
Count Alberto has lost his wealth at the gaming table, he wants to commit suicide but is stopped by
Variety carousel
1955-02-08
A painter gives his daughter a television set for her 18th birthday. On the evening of the party, th
Vittorio D.
2009-09-17
A documentary about Vittorio de Sica with clips of his films and testimonials from friends and famil
Roma
1972-03-16
A virtually plotless, gaudy, impressionistic portrait of Rome through the eyes of one of its most fa
Bellissime
2004-01-08
Documentary consisting of archival footage that depicts the evolving conditions of Italian women dur
Before Him All Rome Trembled
1946-10-02
An opera singer hides an American soldier in his house in Nazi-occupied Rome.
Bellissimo: Images of the Italian Cinema
1985-01-01
A documentary about the Italian cinema as art form and industry.
Revenge
1946-04-21
A man comes home from the war and finds both his plant and his family destroyed.
Tennessee Williams: Orpheus of the American Stage
1994-12-19
A study of Tennessee Williams's life and work as a whole, ranging from his youth in Mississippi and
Barbra Streisand: The Movie Album
2003-10-14
Bonus DVD accompanying the special edition CD "The Movie Album". The DVD contains Barbra performing
The War of the Volcanoes
2012-09-02
In 1948, a fan letter arrived for director Roberto Rossellini from Ingrid Bergman, one of Hollywood’
The Passion of Anna Magnani
2019-05-20
The destiny of legendary actress Anna Magnani through archive footage, often unpublished.
The Bandit
1946-10-05
Among others, Ernesto returns to Turin after the war from a German POW camp; his household destroyed
Quand Jean devint Renoir
2017-04-30
The fascinating story of a man destined to be only a son of and who sought all his life to become "s
My Dad Is 100 Years Old
2006-12-06
A short film in which Isabella Rossellini discusses the life and work of her father, Roberto Rossell
30 Seconds of Love
1936-10-24
A married woman hits a pedestrian with her car who requests that she must perform a particular punis
The Ways of Love
1950-12-13
Anthology film by three directors, "A Day in the Country", "Jofroi" and "The Miracle".
Finalmente soli
1942-03-17
Anna Magnani
1953-10-31
On the way to a singing engagement, Anna Magnani and a taxi driver have an argument over whether her
Rossellini, un Prométhée franciscain
1996-06-18
Rossellini and the City
2009-01-01