La Storia siamo Noi: Vittorio Gassman (ENG SUB)

Vittorio Gassman Knight Grand Cross OMRI (1 September 1922 – 29 June 2000) popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian actor, director, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the greatest Italian actors, whose career includes both important productions as well as dozens of divertissements.

Gassman was born in Genoa to a German father, Heinrich Gassmann (an engineer from Karlsruhe), and an Italian Jewish mother, Luisa Ambron, born in Pisa. While still very young, he moved to Rome, where he studied at the Silvio D'Amico National Academy of Dramatic Arts.

Gassman's stage debut was in Milan, in 1942, with Alda Borelli in Niccodemi's La Nemica. He then moved to Rome and acted at the Teatro Eliseo joining Tino Carraro and Ernesto Calindri in a stage company that remained famous for some time; with them he acted in a range of plays from bourgeois comedy to sophisticated intellectual theatre. In 1946, he made his film debut in Preludio d'amore, while only one year later he appeared in five films. In 1948, he played in Bitter Rice.

It was with Luchino Visconti's company that Gassman achieved his mature successes, together with Paolo Stoppa, Rina Morelli and Paola Borboni. He played Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' Un tram che si chiama desiderio (A Streetcar Named Desire), as well as in Come vi piace (As You Like It) by Shakespeare and Oreste (by Vittorio Alfieri). He joined the Teatro Nazionale with Tommaso Salvini, Massimo Girotti, Arnoldo Foà to create a successful Peer Gynt (by Henrik Ibsen). With Luigi Squarzina in 1952 he co-founded and co-directed the Teatro d'Arte Italiano, producing the first complete version of Hamlet in Italy, followed by rare works such as Seneca's Thyestes and Aeschylus's The Persians.

In 1956, Gassman played the title role in a production of Othello. He was so well received by his acting in the television series entitled Il Mattatore (Spotlight Chaser) that "Il Mattatore" became the nickname that accompanied him for the rest of his life.

Gassman's debut in the commedia all'italiana genre was rather accidental, in Mario Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). The Istituto Italiano di Cultura in London describes the film as "considered among the masterpieces of Italian cinema … The careers of both Gassman and Mastroianni were considerably helped by the success of the film, Gassman in particular, since before this point he was not deemed suitable for comedic roles."

Subsequent acclaimed films featuring Gassman include: The Easy Life (1962), The Great War (1962), I mostri (1963), For Love and Gold (1966), Scent of a Woman (1974) and We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974). His productions have included many of the famous authors and playwrights of the 20th century, with repeated returns to the classics of Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky and the Greek tragicians. He also founded a theatre school in Florence (Bottega Teatrale di Firenze), which educated many of the more talented actors of the current generation of Italian thespians.

In cinema, he worked frequently both in Italy and abroad. He met and fell in love with American actress Shelley Winters while she was touring Europe with fiancé Farley Granger. When Winters was forced to return to Hollywood to fulfil contractual obligations, he followed her there and married her. With his natural charisma and his fluency in English, he scored a number of roles in Hollywood, including Rhapsody with Elizabeth Taylor and The Glass Wall before returning to Italy and the theatre.

In the 1990s he took part in the popular Italian Rai 3 TV show Tunnel in which he very formally and "seriously"' recited documents such as utility bills, yellow pages and similar trivial texts, such as washing instructions for a wool sweater or cookies ingredients. He rendered them with the same professional skill that made him famous while reciting Dante's Divine Comedy.

On 29 June 2000, Gassman died of a heart attack in his sleep at his home in Rome at the age of 77. He was buried at Campo Verano.