- Born
- Died
- Birth nameMarcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastrojanni
- Nickname
- The Latin Lover
- Height5′ 9¼″ (1.76 m)
- Marcello Mastroianni was born in Fontana Liri, Italy in 1924, but soon his family moved to Turin and then Rome. During WW2 he was sent to a German prison camp, but he managed to escape and hide in Venice. He debuted in films as an extra in Marionette (1939), then started working for the Italian department of "Eagle Lion Films" in Rome and joined a drama club, where he was discovered by director Luchino Visconti. In 1957 Visconti gave him the starring part in his Fyodor Dostoevsky adaptation White Nights (1957) and in 1958 he was fine as a little thief in Mario Monicelli's comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). But his real breakthrough came in 1960, when Federico Fellini cast him as an attractive, weary-eyed journalist of the Rome jet-set in La Dolce Vita (1960); that film was the genesis of his "Latin lover" persona, which Mastroianni himself often denied by accepting parts of passive and sensitive men. He would again work with Fellini in several major films, like the exquisite 8½ (1963) (as a movie director who finds himself at a point of crisis) and the touching Ginger & Fred (1986) (as an old entertainer who appears in a TV show). He also appeared as a tired novelist with marital problems in Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte (1961), as an impotent young man in Mauro Bolognini's Bell' Antonio (1960) , as an exiled prince in John Boorman's Leo the Last (1970), as a traitor in Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Allonsanfan (1974) and as a sensitive homosexual in love with a housewife in Ettore Scola's A Special Day (1977). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times, for Divorce Italian Style (1961), A Special Day (1977), and Oci ciornie (1987). During the last decade of his life he worked with directors, like Theodoros Angelopoulos, Bertrand Blier and Raúl Ruiz, who gave him three excellent parts in Three Lives and Only One Death (1996). He died of pancreatic cancer in 1996.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Thanassis Agathos<thanaga@hol.gr
- SpouseFlora Carabella(August 12, 1950 - December 19, 1996) (his death, 1 child)
- Children
- ParentsOttorino MastroianniIda Irolle
- RelativesAnna Biolay(Grandchild)Federica Mastroianni(Niece or Nephew)Ruggero Mastroianni(Sibling)Milo Thoretton(Grandchild)
- Often played the Latin Lover
- Often played outwardly light characters who are actually troubled
- His dark good looks
- From 1970 to 1974 he had an intense relationship with french actress Catherine Deneuve. She was at his bedside when he died, along with their daughter, Chiara Mastroianni.
- When Mastroanni died in 1996, the Trevi Fountain in Rome, associated with his role in La Dolce Vita (1960), was symbolically turned off and draped in black as a tribute.
- His three Oscar nominations for Divorce Italian Style (1961), A Special Day (1977), and Oci ciornie (1987) are the record for a performer in a foreign language film. The only other performers with multiple Oscar nominations for foreign language films are Sophia Loren, Liv Ullmann, Isabelle Adjani, Javier Bardem and Marion Cotillard with two each.
- Since 1998, a "Marcello Mastroianni Award" is given to the best "first time" young actor/actress at the Venice Film Festival.
- Told interviewers that Federico Fellini hired him for La Dolce Vita (1960) because he had a "terribly ordinary face".
- To play Tarzan - at my age, with a big belly; even Cheetah with white hair. We've had enough strong and beautiful Tarzans! - at 60
- I am not a sex addict.
- I don't understand why these Americans have to suffer so much to identify with their characters. Me, I just get up there and act. It's great fun. There's no suffering in it.
- (When asked what keeps him going in his theatrical endeavors) In front of a camera, I feel solid, satisfied. Away from it I am empty, confused.
- They come for you in the morning in a limousine; they take you to the studio; they stick a pretty girl in your arms... They call that a profession? Come on!
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