Silvana Pampanini - actress and singer

Postwar pin-up who preceded Loren and Lollobrigida

Silvana Pampanini combined acting talent with
star quality to become Italy's best paid actress

The actress and singer Silvana Pampanini, who starred in more than 50 films and was Italian cinema’s biggest box office draw in the 1950s, died on this day in 2016 in Rome.

She was 90 years old and had been hospitalized for some weeks following abdominal surgery. Her funeral took place at the Basilica di Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, in the Esquilino district to the southeast of the city centre.

Born in Rome into a family of Venetian heritage in 1925, she had ambitions to become an opera singer, inspired by the career of her aunt, Rosetta Pampanini, a noted soprano who sang at many of the world’s great opera houses.

She enrolled at the renowned Conservatorio Santa Cecilia in Rome, where her male teacher was so struck by her physical beauty that without her knowledge he entered her for the 1946 Miss Italy contest, the first to be staged after the end of World War Two.

Though taken aback at first, Pampanini was a confident young woman and went along with it. Indeed, the audience were so appreciative of her curvy figure, green eyes and long legs that when the jury awarded the title to Rossana Martini, another future actress, there was a near riot and police had to be called to restore order. Later, the result was amended and the contest declared a draw.

Pampanini was unashamedly promoted as a sex
symbol during the 1950s Italian cinema boom

Beauty contests were fertile ground for movie makers in search of the next starlet and although Pampanini wanted to be appreciated for her singing voice as well as her visual appeal it was the latter quality that producers were so keen to exploit.

After her screen debut in 1946, her fame grew steadily and her photo frequently appeared on the front covers of Italy’s booming weekly magazines. Her father, who initially disapproved of her dream of becoming a movie star, soon changed his mind and became her agent. By 1951, when she starred alongside Delia Scala in Carlo Campogalliani’s musical comedy Bellezze in bicicletta - Beauties on Bicycles - and as the Empress Poppea in Mario Soldati’s comedy, OK Nerone, she was the highest paid actress in Italy and was making up to eight films per year.

Those titles unashamedly showcased her pin-up status but Pampanini was not without talent as an actress. Titles such as Luigi Comencini’s drama La Tratta delle bianche - The White Slave Trade - Paolo Moffa’s La principessa delle Canarie - The Princess of the Canaries - Gianni Franciolini’s Racconti Romani - Roman Tales - and Dino Risi’s Il Gaucho - The Gaucho - saw her perform opposite major actors such as Vittorio Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni, Totò and Vittorio De Sica.

La strada lungo un anno won
a Golden Globe in 1958

In 1958 she took a part in Giuseppe De Santis's La strada lungo un anno - The Road a Year Long - which won the Golden Globe award for best foreign film and was nominated for an Oscar in the same category.

She became popular as far afield as Egypt, Mexico and Japan as well as in Spain and France, where she was known as Niní Pampan. She became a worldwide symbol of Italian beauty alongside such stars as Lucia Bosè and Silvana Mangano, and later Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida.

There were countless offers to take her appeal to Hollywood, but Pampanini baulked at the idea of spending hours learning English and turned them all down. 

Nonetheless, she travelled extensively, happy to be a smiling ambassador for Italian cinema In Europe, South America, North Africa and even the Soviet Union, often appearing on local TV shows or accepting invitations to be a guest panel member at film festivals. 

Although she was frequently linked romantically with co-stars such as Orson Welles, Omar Sharif, William Holden and Tyrone Power, she never married, despite having, in her own words, ‘more suitors than headaches’ in her life.

She rejected an offer of marriage from comic actor Totò because of his age - he was 27 years’ her senior. There were rumours of affairs with the Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, and Egypt’s King Farouk, who were both said to be smitten after meeting her.

Pampanini with the comic actor Totò, one of
a number of suitors she ultimately rejected

Pampanini was pursued with particular ardour by the Greek-born producer Moris Egas, who showered her with jewels and furs and other valuable items. When she ultimately rejected him, he took legal action to try to recover his gifts but lost the case.

Later, in an autobiography entitled Scandalamente perbene - Scandalously Respectable - she claimed that the love of her life had been an older man - another actor - who had died a month before they were to wed, but she declined to name him. 

Pampanini had a fiery temperament. After the Miss Italy contest that shot her to fame, she gave a radio interview alongside her joint-winner that had to be curtailed when the two began to quarrel and pull each other’s hair. Years later, at the Venice Lido Film Festival, she physically attacked a journalist who had been unkind to her in a magazine article.

Her career effectively came to an end in her mid-60s, when she gave up full-time work to look after her elderly parents. After they died, she moved for a while to Monte Carlo and lived in relative obscurity.  She made some TV appearances, the last of which was in 2002.

Rome's Parioli district is an upmarket residential
area notable for its tree-lined streets

Travel tip:

The Parioli district, where Pampanini lived at the height of her fame, is one of Rome's wealthiest residential neighbourhoods. Located north of the city centre, it is notable for its tree-lined streets and elegant houses, and for some of Rome's finest restaurants. The Auditorium Parco della Musica and the Villa Ada, once the Rome residence of the Italian royal family and surrounded by the second largest park in the city, can also be found within the Parioli district, which takes its name from the Monti Parioli hills.

The entrance to the historic
Conservatorio in Via dei Greci

Travel tip:

The Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia, where Silvana Pampanini trained as a singer, dates back to 1875. It was set up under the auspices of one of the oldest musical institutions in the world, now known as the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, which was established in 1565. The Conservatorio can be found in Via dei Greci, not far from the Spanish Steps in central Rome. The Academy is located at the Parco della Musica in the northern part of Rome in Viale Pietro de Coubertin in the Flaminio district, close to the location of the 1960 Summer Olympic Games.

Also on this day:

Befana - Italy’s 6 January tradition

1695: The birth of oboist and composer Giuseppe Sammartini

1819: The birth of painter Baldassare Verazzi

1907: The first Montessori school opens in Rome

1938: The birth of singer and actor Adriano Celentano

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5 January

Dr Michele Navarra – physician and Mafia boss

Hospital doctor who headed Corleone clan

Michele Navarra, an extraordinary figure who became the leading physician in his home town of Corleone while simultaneously heading up one of the most notorious clans in the history of the Sicilian Mafia, was born on this day in 1905.  Dr Navarra was a graduate of the University of Palermo, where he studied engineering before turning to medicine, and became a captain in the Royal Italian Army. He could have had a comfortable and worthy career as a doctor.  Yet he developed a fascination with stories about his uncle, Angelo Gagliano, who until he was murdered when Navarra was a boy of about 10 years old had been a member of the Fratuzzi – the Brothers – a criminal organisation who leased agricultural land from absentee landlords and then sublet it to peasant farmers at exorbitant rates, enforcing their authority by extorting protection money, as well as by controlling the hiring of workers.  As the son of a land surveyor, Navarra already enjoyed privileges inaccessible to most of the population and his medical qualifications only further lifted his standing in the community. Somehow, though, it was not enough.  Read more…

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Umberto Eco – novelist and semiotician

Prolific author became fascinated with signs and symbols

Academic and writer Umberto Eco was born on this day in 1932 in Alessandria in Piedmont.  Eco, who died in 2016, was best known for his mystery novel, The Name of the Rose - Il Nome della Rosa, which was first published in Italian in 1980, but he was also a respected expert on semiotics, the branch of linguistics concerned with signs and symbols.  Eco studied medieval literature and philosophy at the University of Turin and after graduating worked in television as well returning to lecture at the University of Turin. He was a visiting professor at a number of American universities and received honorary doctorates from universities in America and Serbia.  As well as producing fiction, he published books on medieval aesthetics, literary criticism, media culture, anthropology and philosophy. He also helped to found an important new approach in contemporary semiotics and to launch a journal on semiotics.  Eco set his first novel, The Name of the Rose, in a 14th century monastery with a Franciscan friar as the detective. The book has been described as ‘an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory’.  Read more…

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Severino Gazzelloni - flautist

Lead player with RAI orchestra considered a great of Italian music

The flautist Severino Gazzelloni, who for 30 years was the principal player of his instrument in the prestigious RAI National Symphony Orchestra but who had a repertoire that extended well beyond orchestral classical music, was born on this day in 1919 in Roccasecca, a town perched on a hillside in southern Lazio, about 130km (81 miles) south of Rome.  He was known for his versatility. In addition to his proficiency in classical flute pieces, Gazzelloni also excelled in jazz and 20th century avant-garde music. As such, many musicians and aficionados regard him as one of the finest flute players of all time.  Gazzelloni also taught others to master the flute. His notable pupils included the American jazz saxophonist Eric Dolphy and the Dutch classical flautist Abbie de Quant.  The son of a tailor in Roccasecca, Gazzelloni grew up in modest circumstances yet had music around him from a young age as his father played in a local band.  He taught himself music and became fascinated with the flute as an instrument, acquiring the technique to play it simply by practising for endless hours on his own.  By the age of seven, his father considered him good enough to sit alongside him in the band.  Read more…

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Giuseppe Impastato - anti-Mafia activist

Son of mafioso was murdered for speaking out

Giuseppe Impastato, a political activist who was murdered by the Sicilian Mafia in 1978, was born on this day in 1948 in Cinisi, a coastal resort 36km (22 miles) west of Palermo which is now home to the city's Punta Raisi airport.  Also known as Peppino, Impastato was born into a Mafia family.  His father, Luigi, had been considered a significant enough figure in the criminal organisation to be sent into internal exile during the Fascist crackdown of the 1920s and was a close friend of the local Mafia boss, Gaetano Badalamenti.  Impastato had already begun to take an interest in left-wing political ideology when his uncle, Cesare Manzella, was blown up by a car bomb in 1963, the victim of a contract killing.  The murder had a profound effect on Impastato, then only 15, who denounced all his father stood for and left home.  He began to write, founding a left-wing newsletter, L'Idea Socialista, in 1965, and soon joined the Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP).  He became the regular instigator of student and workers' protests during the late 1960s and led a number of anti-Mafia demonstrations.  Read more…

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4 January

Carlo Levi – writer and painter

Author and doctor who highlighted poverty in southern Italy

The anti-Fascist writer, painter and doctor, Carlo Levi, died on this day in Rome in 1975.  He is best remembered for his book Christ Stopped at Eboli - Cristo si è fermato a Eboli - an account of the time he spent in political exile in a remote, impoverished part of Italy.  Levi was born in Turin in 1902. His father was a wealthy Jewish physician and Levi went to the University of Turin to study medicine after finishing school.  While at University he became active in politics and after graduating he turned his attention to painting.  But he never completely abandoned medicine and moved to Paris to continue his medical research while painting.  After returning to Italy, Levi founded an anti-Fascist movement in 1929. As a result he was arrested and sent into exile to a remote area of Italy called Lucania (now renamed Basilicata).  He encountered extreme poverty, which had been unknown in the north where he grew up. As well as writing and painting while he was in exile, he served as a doctor to help the poor villagers he lived among.  When he was released from his political exile he moved back to France but on his return to Italy he was arrested again.  Read more…

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Pino Daniele - singer and songwriter

Naples mourned star with flags at half-mast

The Neapolitan singer-songwriter Pino Daniele died on this day in 2015 in hospital in Rome.  Daniele, whose gift was to fuse his city’s traditional music with blues and jazz, suffered a heart attack after being admitted with breathing difficulties. Daniele, who had a history of heart problems, had been taken to Rome after falling ill at his holiday home in Tuscany.  On learning of his death, the Naples mayor Luigi de Magistris ordered that flags on municipal buildings in the city be flown at half-mast.  Born in 1955, Daniele grew up in a working class family in the Sanità neighborhood of Naples, once a notorious hotbed of crime. His father worked at the docks.  As a musician, he was self-taught, mastering the guitar with no formal lessons and developing a unique voice, alternately soaring and soft, and gravelly to the point of sounding almost hoarse.  He named the great American jazz musicians Louis Armstrong and George Benson as his major influences but also drew deeply on the life, culture and traditions of his home city, which he loved.  His songs sometimes combined Italian, English and Naples dialect.  Read more…

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Gaetano Merola – conductor and impresario

Neapolitan who founded the San Francisco Opera

Gaetano Merola, a musician from Naples who emigrated to the United States and ultimately founded the San Francisco Opera, was born on this day in 1881.  Merola directed the company and conducted many performances for 30 years from its opening night in September 1923 until his death in August 1953.  He literally died doing what he loved, collapsing in the orchestra pit while conducting the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra during a concert at an outdoor amphitheatre in the city.  The son of a violinist at the Royal Court in Naples, Merola studied piano and conducting at the Conservatorio di San Pietro a Majella in Naples, graduating with honours at the age of 16.  Three years later he was invited to New York to work as assistant to Luigi Mancinelli, another Italian emigrant, born in Orvieto, who was a noted composer and cellist who was lead conductor of the New York Metropolitan Opera.  Demand for his services grew and he made regular guest appearances with companies across America and beyond, including a stint at Oscar Hammerstein’s London Opera House on the site of what is now the Peacock Theatre in Holborn.   Read more…

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Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Greco - Mafia executioner

Notorious hitman thought to have committed at least 80 murders

The notorious Mafia hitman Giuseppe Greco, who was convicted posthumously on 58 counts of murder but whose victims possibly ran into hundreds, was born on this day in 1952 in Ciaculli, a town on the outskirts of Palermo in Sicily.  More often known as ‘Pino’, or by his nickname Scarpuzzedda - meaning ‘little shoe’ - Greco is considered one of the most prolific killers in the history of organised crime.  The nephew of Michele Greco, who lived on an estate just outside Ciaculli and rose to be head of the Sicilian Mafia Commission - a body set up to settle disputes between rival clans - Pino Greco is generally accepted to have been responsible for 80 deaths, although some students of Cosa Nostra history believe he could have committed more than 300 killings.  Most of Greco’s victims were fellow criminals, the majority of them killed during the Second Mafia War, which began in 1978 and intensified between 1981 and 1983 with more than 1,000 homicides, as rival clans fought each other and against the state, with judges, prosecutors and politicians prominent in the fight against organised crime themselves becoming targets.  Read more…

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Giovanni Battista Pergolesi – composer

Brief career of 'opera buffa' genius

Opera composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was born on this day in 1710 as Giovanni Battista Draghi, in Jesi, in what is now the province of Ancona.  He later acquired the name Pergolesi, the Italian word for the residents of Pergola in Marche, which had been the birthplace of his ancestors.  Pergolesi was the most important early composer of opera buffa - comic opera. He wrote a two-act buffa intermezzo for one of his serious operas, which later became a popular work in its own right.  He also wrote sacred music and his Stabat Mater, composed in 1736, has been used in the soundtracks of many contemporary films.  Pergolesi received a musical education at the Conservatorio dei Poveri in Naples where he gained a good reputation as a violinist.  In 1732 he was appointed maestro di cappella to the Prince of Stigliano in Naples and produced for him an opera buffa, Lo frate ‘nnammorato, and a sacred work, believed to be his Mass in D, which were both well received.  The following year his serious opera, Il prigionier superbo, was produced but it was the comic intermezzo, La serva padrona, inserted between the acts, that was most popular, revealing his gift for comic characterisation.  Read more…

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3 January

NEW - Baldassare Galuppi – opera composer

Musician from Burano had a talent for comic opera

The prolific Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi, who worked alongside the playwright Carlo Goldoni, died on this day in 1785 in Venice.  At the height of his career, Galuppi achieved international success, working at different times in Vienna, London and Saint Petersburg, but his main base was Venice, where he held a succession of prestigious posts during his life. Galuppi was born on the island of Burano in the Venetian lagoon and was sometimes referred to as Il Buranello, a signature he used on his music manuscripts. His father was a barber who also played the violin in an orchestra, and is believed to have been his first music teacher.  At the age of 15, Galuppi wrote his first opera, which was performed at Chioggia and Vicenza. He then became harpsichordist at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence.  In the early part of his career, Galuppi was successful in the opera seria genre, but after 1749 many of his operas were comic collaborations with the Venetian dramatist Carlo Goldoni. The most popular of his comic operas was his 1754 composition Il filosofo di campagna – The Country Philosopher.  Read more…

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Sergio Leone – film director

Distinctive style of  ‘Spaghetti Western’ creator

Italian film director, producer and screenwriter Sergio Leone was born on this day in 1929 in Rome.  Leone is most associated with the ‘spaghetti western’ genre of films, such as the Dollars trilogy of westerns featuring Clint Eastwood.  He had a distinctive film-making style that involved juxtaposing extreme close-up shots with lengthy long shots.  Leone’s father was a film director and his mother was a silent film actress. He went to watch his father at work on film sets from an early age.  He dropped out of university to begin his own career in the industry at the age of 18 as an assistant to the director Vittorio De Sica.  He began writing screen plays and worked as an assistant director on Quo Vadis and Ben Hur at Cinecittà in Rome.  When the director of The Last Days of Pompeii fell ill, Leone was asked to step in and complete the film.  He made his solo debut as a director with The Colossus of Rhodes in 1961.   Leone turned his attention to making spaghetti westerns in the 1960s and his films, A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly were big financial successes.  Read more…

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Renato Carosone – singer-songwriter

Composer revived popularity of the traditional Neapolitan song

Renato Carosone, who became famous for writing and performing Neapolitan songs in modern times, was born Renato Carusone on this day in 1920 in Naples.  His 1956 song Tu vuo’ fa’ l’Americano - 'You want to be American' - has been used in films and performed by many famous singers right up to the present day.  Torero, a song released by him in 1957, was translated into 12 languages and was at the top of the US pop charts for 14 weeks.  Carosone studied the piano at the Naples Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella and obtained his diploma in 1937, when he was just 17. He went to work as a pianist in Addis Ababa and then served in the army on the Italian Somali front. He did not return to Italy until 1946, after the end of the Second World War.  Back home, he had to start his career afresh and moved to Rome, where he played the piano for small bands.  He was asked to put together a group for the opening of a new club and signed Dutch guitarist, Peter van Houten and Neapolitan drummer, Gegè di Giacomo, with whom he launched the Trio Carosone.  When Van Houten left to pursue a solo career, Di Giacomo remained with Carosone and they recruited more musicians to form a new band.  Read more…

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Cicero - politician and philosopher

Roman writer and orator revered by Renaissance scholars

Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Roman lawyer, politician, philosopher and great orator whose rediscovered works were an important driver of the Renaissance in the 14th century, was born on this day in 106BC in Arpinum, a hill town about 100km (62 miles) southeast of Rome known today as Arpino.  A loyal supporter of the Roman Republic, Cicero’s brilliance as a student of Roman law and his effectiveness as a speaker led to his rapid rise in Roman politics, which saw him become the youngest citizen to attain the rank of consul, the highest political office of the republic, without hailing from a political family.  Although his political career foundered after his opposition to the secret alliance between Caesar, Pompey and Crassus known as the First Triumvirate, forced him into exile, Cicero turned to writing, producing many works relating to philosophy, as well as hundreds of letters and speeches.  Much of his work disappeared after his death, but was rediscovered by 14th century scholars, most notably Francesco Petrarca - Petrarch - as academics sought to enhance their knowledge by seeking out ancient Greek and Roman texts. Read more…

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Pietro Metastasio – poet and librettist

From street entertainer to leading libretto writer

Pietro Metastasio, who became Europe’s most celebrated opera librettist in the 18th century, was born on this day in 1698 in Rome.  He was christened Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, one of four children born to Felice Trapassi, from Assisi and Francesca Galasti from Bologna. His father served in the papal forces before becoming a grocer in Via dei Cappellari.  While still a child, Pietro could attract crowds by reciting impromptu verses. On one occasion, in 1709, Giovanni Vincenzo Gravina, director of the Arcadian Academy, stopped to listen. He was so impressed that he made the young boy his protégé and later adopted him, changing his surname to Metastasio.  He provided the young Metastasio with a good education and encouraged him to develop his talent.  When Gravina was on his way to Calabria on a business trip, he exhibited Metastasio in the literary circles of Naples, but after the young boy became ill, he placed him in the care of a relative to help him recuperate.  Gravina decided Metastasio should never improvise again but should concentrate on his education and reserve his talent for nobler efforts.  Read more...

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Gianfranco Fini – politician

Party leader who moved away from fascism

Gianfranco Fini, former leader of the Alleanza Nazionale (National Alliance), the post-fascist political party in Italy, was born on this day in 1952 in Bologna.  Fini has been President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Silvio Berlusconi’s Government from 2001 to 2006.  His father, Argenio ‘Sergio’ Fini, was a volunteer with the Italian Social Republic, a Fascist state in Northern Italy allied with Germany between 1943 and 1945.  His maternal grandfather, Antonio Marani, took part in the march on Rome, which signalled the beginning of Italian Fascism in 1922.  Fini’s first name, Gianfranco, was chosen in memory of his cousin, who was killed at the age of 20 by partisans after the liberation of northern Italy on 25 April, 1945.  Fini became interested in politics at the age of 16, after he was involved in a clash with communist activists and he went on to join the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist political party.  After graduating from La Sapienza University in Rome he became involved with the party’s newspaper, Il Secolo d’Italia.   Read more…

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