More sad news, Rosanna Schiaffino died on the 17th October after a long battle with breast cancer. She was one of the best known Italian actresses of the late 50s and sixties, a Genoan who moved into cinema after winning local beauty contests and was soon making an impact in films like La sfida (58). She appeared in productions of a variety of genres, from peplum (Teseo contro il minotauro, 62) to spy film (Das Geheimnis der drei Dschunken, 66), from war film (Gli eroi, 72) to giallo (L’assassino ha riservato nove poltrone, 74) not to mention a number of high quality productions like Damiani’s La strega in amore, 66) and Lattuada’s La mandragola (65). She also worked on anumber of international co-productions, such as The Long Ships (64) and A Man Called Noon (73), although she never tried to conquer Hollywood like several of her peers.
Here’s a translation of an obituary that appeared in Il Messagero:
ROME (October 18) – She suited the colors turquoise, emerald green, orange. And when she dressed in red it meant that she was furious at God knows who or what. Without makeup she felt naked, but when challenged by Francesco Rosi she gave up her false eyelashes, eyeliner, lipstick, and even mascara. It was 1958, she was just 19 years and was even more beautiful without the makeup, so, soap and water it was. Rosanna Schiaffino, who would have been 70 next November, died yesterday in her home in Milan.
She was defeated by cancer after a grueling, long illness. But it is hard to such a sensual, stunning diva of the sixties being fragile, bought down by the disease. She always seemed so strong-willed, with her brown eyes and hair, so Mediterranean.
Born into a bourgeois family, Rosanna Schiaffino was a child until, suddenly at fourteen, she developed into a woman. The cinema came shortly afterwards, with Toto Lascia in 1956, and she was soon a regular feature on the covers of entertainment magazines. The most famous of her pictures was shot by Henry Lucherini, who called her the Italian Edy Lamar, for the lauch of La notte brava
The famous press agent led her and the film’s other actresses – Anna Maria Ferrero, Antonella Lualdi and Elsa Martinelli – into the sea at Fregene. When she left the water, with the clothes stuck to her and highlighting her curves, he asked the photogrpaher to shoot. It was the era of La dolce vita, with Via Veneto in lights, rowdy until dawn. It was a time when, sipping coffee there, would be ‘the likes of Flaiano, Age and Scarpelli, Monicelli, not the Japanese or the Russians’, according to Schiaffino’s first husband, Alfredo Bini, who produced some fifty films.
Their engagement was short, then they got married, had a daughter, Annabella, and slowly their love faded. Their union ended without a fight or an argument, but in a civilised, quiet fashion. Only once, in an interview, did she say: “Everyone thinks I’m strong, but I feel like a frail woman, who needs to be protected”.
She appeared in about thirty films, among them La strega in amore and Arrivederci, baby!, not counting the many peplums she shot in Cinecitta. But after the TV series Don Giovanni in Sicilia, she gave up on the cinema in 1977. Shortly after she appeared serene, confident that she finally found the right man, and in 1982 she married Giorgio Falck, a steel magnate. She had another son, Guido, and became a firm fixture on the social scene. But then there was a tortuous breakup, in which the court case revealed details of abuse, libel and beatings. So she wasn’t lucky in love, Schiaffino, maybe not even in the cinema, where directors focused mainly on her beauty. She was only allowed to use her own voice after eight years of being dubbed.
When she died yesterday morning, her son Guido was at her side: “She suffered greatly, but met death head on. It was an example of how one should die. If she stopped fighting, it was because she knew that she was ready to die”.
And with the movies remains her smile, the image of a beautiful woman, serious and fair. A girl who claimed to be vulnerable, but who managed to defend herself until the very end.