Frank Capra - film director

Giant of American cinema from humble roots in Sicily

The huge popularity of Frank Capra's films was
to influence generations of movie-makers 

The film director Frank Capra, one of the most celebrated figures of the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood, was born on this day in 1897 in Bisacquino, a hilltop village about 80km (50 miles) south of the Sicilian capital of Palermo.

Capra, whose films often championed the cause of society’s underdogs in the face of greedy, powerful elites, were hugely popular with audiences and critics in the 1930s, their stories seen as personifying the American Dream.

He won the Oscar for Best Director three times, starting with his breakthrough movie It Happened One Night (1934), starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, followed by Mr Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and You Can’t Take it With You (1938).

While initially less well received by the critics and filmgoers, his 1946 tearjerker It’s A Wonderful Life, which starred James Stewart, has come to be regarded as one of the most heartwarming Christmas films of all time.

Yet Capra’s story started in the most humble beginnings in Bisacquino, a town 744m (2,441ft) above sea level at the foot of Monte Triona in the rugged Sicani Mountains, less than 20km (12 miles) from Corleone, which would become a notorious Mafia stronghold.

Born Francesco Rosario Capra, he was the youngest of seven children of Salvatore Capra, a fruit grower, and his wife, Rosaria.  Salvatore struggled to make much money and Francesco had to help on the farm even as a small child.

As the 20th century dawned, in common with many Sicilians, Salvatore joined the long procession of disillusioned Italians, mainly from the south, who were tempted to emigrate to the United States, often at huge personal cost as their desperation was exploited by criminals and fraudsters.

In 1903, the family boarded a boat to Naples, where they crammed into the steerage compartment of the SS Germania, a steamship built in France that had up to 60 comfortable cabins but was fitted out mainly to house large numbers of emigrants in the lower decks, which could accommodate up to 1,400 passengers, albeit in dreadful conditions.

Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in a scene from It 
Happened One Night, which won Capra his first Oscar

The Capra family left Naples for the 13-14 day passage to New York on May 10, which meant that the future film director turned six about halfway through the journey. 

Frank Capra wrote about the experience later in life. “You're all together - you have no privacy.  Very few people have trunks or anything that takes up space. They have just what they can carry in their hands or in a bag. Nobody takes their clothes off. There's no ventilation, and it stinks like hell. They're all miserable. It's the most degrading place you could ever be.”

Yet he recalled his father’s excitement at seeing the Statue of Liberty, describing the statue’s upheld torch as “the greatest light since the Star of Bethlehem”.

From New York, the Capra family travelled by train to Los Angeles, where they settled in an Italian community in the East Side in what is now the Lincoln Heights area. Salvatore found work as a fruit picker.

 It's A Wonderful Life became
one of Capra's best-loved films 

The young Francesco’s route into the film industry that would define his life was a long and difficult one. Throughout his school and college years, he simultaneously worked in low-paid jobs to help the family, sometimes as a street-corner newspaper boy, or playing music in bars. Some backstage theatre work at this time may have sparked his interest in storytelling.

National service followed, with Capra deployed teaching maths at a military base in San Francisco. After his father died in 1916, Capra contracted Spanish Flu but fortunately survived what became a deadly pandemic. Discharged, he became an American citizen in 1920, taking the name Frank Russell Capra.

After struggling to find work, he made friends with an actor, with whose help he persuaded a small studio in San Francisco to allow him to direct a short film. Impressed enough, the studio took him on and his movie career began.

Showing a talent for comedy, Capra became a gag writer for the producer and director Hal Roach and then joined Mack Sennett’s Keystone Company, where he directed silent comedian Harry Langdon in The Strong Man (1926) and Long Pants (1927). 

He and Langdon parted ways over a difference of opinion, but that led to what would be Capra’s big break, his move to Columbia Pictures.

It Happened One Night, a story about the unlikely relationship between a society heiress and a recently unemployed newspaper reporter who meet on a Greyhound bus from Florida to New York, brought him staggering success. It was the first of only three films in history to win all five major Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Frank Capra, pictured in 1982, reflects on his
career during a television interview

In addition to his other Oscar winners, Capra made Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Meet John Doe (1941) and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) while at the peak of his powers, and won another Oscar in 1943 for Prelude to War, part of a documentary series commissioned by the Office of War Information to educate American troops, in the face of relentless Nazi propaganda and disinformation, about the necessity of combating the Axis powers during World War II.

Many years after he retired from film-making - he shot his last movie in 1964 - Capra returned to Bisacquino, aged nearly 80, to see again the house where his mother had lived. 

The visit initially was meant to be secret, largely because Capra felt uncomfortable about the fact that many of his childhood friends and some family members became involved with the Mafia. There was reportedly resentment within local Mafia circles that none of the Capra fortune had found its way back to the village.

One account of the visit claimed that, although he was happy to meet villagers, when a nephew organised a huge family lunch in his honour, Capra was advised by some members of his travelling entourage not to eat anything, fearful he could be poisoned.

Capra died at his home in La Quinta, California at the age of 94. At his peak he was regarded as one of the greatest film-makers in the world. His stories of individual courage triumphing over collective evil had an influence on future generations of writers and directors in cinema and television that still endures. 

The rooftops of Bisacquino, Capra's birthplace,
bathed in the light of a late summer sunset

Travel tip:

The habitation of the area around what is now Bisacquino goes back to the Iron Age and the Sican tribe, who were succeeded by the Greeks, the Carthaginians and the Romans. The village or small town, the population of which peaked at around 10,300 in the early 1900s and 1920s, has a strong Islamic imprint of alleys, courtyards and stone houses, a legacy of the Muslim domination of Sicily in the ninth century, although there is also Baroque architecture, of which a fine example is the Cathedral of San Giovanni Battista, known locally as the Chiesa Madre (Mother Church), on Piazza Triona. The house where Capra was born is about 350m away from Piazza Triona on Via Santo Cono, and while now privately owned and no longer open to the public, it remains marked by a small sign mounted on a pole outside. The Capra family were devout Catholics and the nearby church of San Francesco di Paola was their regular place of worship. The Bisacquino Civic Museum, in Via Palmerino, dedicates a permanent section to Capra, where visitors can see original documents from his early years, including his birth certificate, as well as period photographs and newspaper articles, and testimonies from his return to the town in 1977.

Neapolitans eating pasta with their bare hands
was a regular sight in the Naples of the 1900s

Travel tip:

In 1903, when the Capra family arrived in the city to board the SS Germania at the Molo Pisacane, Naples was a bustling, vibrant port city defined by its chaotic streets and deep-rooted culinary traditions. Photographers and early film makers were drawn to its lively urban life, where story tellers and dancers entertained the public and local people ate steaming pasta with their bare hands. At the turn of the 20th century, long pasta - commonly referred to as maccheroni - was an everyday street food, sold by street vendors known as maccheronai. Because forks were uncommon among the working class, locals scooped up the steaming strands of pasta with their bare hands, lifting them high and lowering them straight into their mouths. This informal, theatrical way of eating became a celebrated spectacle that fascinated visitors. In terms of its architectural appearance, the Naples of 1903 did not look much different to the Naples of the 21st century. The famous sights - the Royal Palace, the Castel Nuovo, the Galleria Umberto I, the Teatro di San Carlo and the Castel dell'Ovo, the Duomo and Spaccanapoli, the famous, straight-as-an-arrow street that cuts directly through the historical centre - were already attracting visitors to the city.

More reading: 

The Sicilian behind Oscar-winning film Nuovo Cinema Paradiso

How Dino De Laurentiis put Italian cinema on the world map

The Corleone Mafia boss who dodged police for 43 years

Also on this day:

1551: The death of painter Domenico di Pace Beccafumi

1892: The birth of opera and Broadway star Ezio Pinza

1939: The birth of anti-Mafia crusader Giovanni Falcone

1945: The birth of politician and magistrate Giuseppe Ayala

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17 May

Federico II Gonzaga – Duke of Mantua

Ruler received a valuable education at the papal court

Federico Gonzaga, who became the ruler of Mantua and Montferrat, was born on this day in 1500 in Mantua.  He spent his childhood living as a political hostage, first at the court of Pope Julius II in Rome and then at the court of Francis I of France.  It wasn’t perhaps an ideal start in life, but historians believe the political, social and cultural education he received in the company of popes, cardinals, and kings helped shape him as a future ruler.  Federico was the son of Francesco II Gonzaga and Isabella d’Este. His godfather was Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli’s model for the ideal Renaissance Prince.  His father, Francesco, was captured by the Venetians during battle and held hostage for several months. While he was absent, his wife, Isabella, ruled Mantua.  Francesco managed to secure his own release only by agreeing to send his son, Federico, to be a hostage at the papal court.  Read more…

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Luca Cadalora - motorcycle world champion

Modena rider won titles in 125cc and 250cc categories

Luca Cadalora, the motorcycle racer who was three times a world champion, was born on this day in 1963 in Modena, Emilia-Romagna.  Later employed as a coach to Italy’s seven-times MotoGP world champion Valentino Rossi, Cadalora began his professional motorcycle racing career in 1984, riding an MBA in the 125cc world championship.  He picked up a respectable 27 points to finish eighth in his debut season, his best performance a second place in the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, but had a very disappointing second season, finishing only three races to collect a meagre four points.  His switch to the Garelli team, the dominant force at the time in the 125cc class, catapulted him to fame.  Cadalora and team-mate Fausto Gresini, his fellow Italian, battled it out for the title through the season, each finishing with four wins. Read more…

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Giulio Carlo Argan – art historian and politician

Award winning art expert went from Fascism to Communism

Art historian and critic Giulio Carlo Argan, who joined the Fascist party in the 1920s, but went on to become the first Communist mayor of Rome nearly 50 years later, was born on this day in 1909 in Turin.  After stepping down as Mayor of Rome in 1979, Argan represented the Italian Communist Party as a Senator of the Italian Republic, between 1983 and 1992. Argan’s family were originally from Geneva, but by the 19th century they had settled in the Piedmont region. His father was the bursar of the provincial mental asylum and his mother was a school teacher. After leaving high school, Argan went to study at the University of Turin. He joined the National Fascist Party in 1928 and after graduating in 1931 he worked for the National Arts and Antiquity Directorate. Among his duties were directing the magazine, Le Arti, and helping to establish what became one of the most prestigious institutes for art conservation and restoration. Read more…

Sandro Botticelli – painter

Renaissance master was forgotten until the 19th century

Early Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli died on this day in 1510 in Florence.  Years before his death he had asked to be buried in the Church of Ognissanti in Florence at the feet of a woman for whom it is believed he suffered unrequited love.   She was Simonetta Vespucci, a married noblewoman, who had died in 1476. She is thought to have been the model for Botticelli’s major work, The Birth of Venus, which was painted years later in 1485, and that she also appeared in many of his other paintings.  After his death, Botticelli was quickly forgotten and his paintings remained in the churches and villas for which they had been created until the late 19th century, when people started to appreciate his work again.  Botticelli was born Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi in 1445. He was active during the golden age of painting in Florence. Read more…

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Giovanna Trillini - fencing champion

Four-times Olympic champion in foil

The Olympic fencing champion Giovanna Trillini, one of Italy’s most successful female athletes, was born on this day in 1970 in Jesi, a medieval town in the Marche region.  Trillini won the individual gold medal in the foil event at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona and was part of Italy’s gold-medal winning group in the team foil at Barcelona in 1992 as well as at Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000.  She competed at five consecutive summer Olympics between 1996 and 2008 and her total medal haul of eight, including one silver and two bronze medals in the individual foil, makes her Italy’s fifth most successful Olympian and the third most successful female competitor.  After winning individual gold in Barcelona, she was honoured by being asked to be the flag bearer for the azzurri team at the opening ceremony for the Games in Atlanta four years later.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and their Peoples, by David Gilmour

The Pursuit of Italy traces the whole history of the Italian peninsula in a wonderfully readable style, full of well-chosen stories and observations from personal experience, and peopled by many of the great figures of the Italian past, from Cicero and Virgil to Dante and the Medici, from Cavour and Verdi to the controversial political figures of the 20th century. The book gives a clear-eyed view of the Risorgimento, the pivotal event in modern Italian history, debunking the influential myths which have grown up around it. Gilmour shows that the glory of Italy has always lain in its regions, with their distinctive art, civic cultures, identities and cuisine and whose inhabitants identified themselves not as Italians, but as Tuscans and Venetians, Sicilians and Lombards, Neapolitans and Genoese. This is where the strength and culture of Italy still comes from, rather than from misconceived and mishandled concepts of nationalism and unity. This wise and enormously engaging book explains the course of Italian history in a manner and with a coherence which no one with an interest in the country could fail to enjoy.

David Gilmour is one of Britain's most admired and accomplished historical writers and biographers. His previous books include The Last Leopard: A Life of Giuseppe di Lampedusa (winner of the Marsh Biography Award); Curzon (Duff Cooper Prize); and Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling (Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography).

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16 May

Massimo Moratti - business tycoon

Billionaire chairman oversaw golden era at Internazionale

The billionaire tycoon and former chairman of Milan’s Internazionale football club, Massimo Moratti, was born on this day in 1945 in Bosco Chiesanuova, a small town in Veneto about 20km (12 miles) north of Verona.  His primary business, the energy provider Saras, of which he is chief executive, owns about 15 per cent of Italy’s oil refining capacity, mainly through the Sarroch refinery on Sardinia, which has a capacity of about 300,000 barrels per day.  Moratti is estimated to have net wealth of about €1.28 billion ($1.4 billion) yet is said to have spent close to €1.5 billion of his personal fortune on buying players during his chairmanship of Inter, which lasted from 1995 until 2013.  Between 2005 and 2011 Inter won the Serie A title five times, the Coppa Italia and the Supercoppa Italiana four times each, the Champions League once and the FIFA World Club cup once. Read more…

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Mario Monicelli - film director

Life’s work put him among greats of commedia all’italiana

Mario Monicelli, the director who became known as ‘the father of commedia all’italiana’ and was nominated for an Oscar six times, was born on this day in 1915 in Viareggio.  He made more than 70 films, working into his 90s.  He helped advance the careers of actors such as Vittorio Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale, and forged successful associations with the great comic actors Totò and Alberto Sordi.  Commedia all’italiana was notable for combining the traditional elements of comedy with social commentary, often addressing some of the most controversial issues of the times and making fun of any organisation, the Catholic Church in particular, perceived to have an earnest sense of self-importance.  The genre’s stories were often heavily laced with sadness and Monicelli’s work won praise for his particular sensitivity to the miseries and joys of Italian life and the foibles of ordinary Italians. Read more…

Laura Pausini - singer-songwriter

Grammy Award-winner has sold more than 70 million records

One of Italy's best-selling recording artists of all time, pop singer-songwriter Laura Pausini, was born on this day in 1974 in Solarolo, in the province of Ravenna.  The first Italian female performer to win a Grammy Award, Pausini's records have sold more than 70 million copies worldwide, more than both Zucchero and Eros Ramazzotti, two giants of Italian popular music.  The figure is all the more remarkable for the fact that Pausini has only scratched the surface of the English-language market, which is by far the most lucrative.  She records mainly in Italian but has also enjoyed considerable success with recordings in Spanish and Catalan. She is the first non-Spanish artist to sell more than a million copies of a single album in Spain.  Pausini's background and upbringing always made it likely she would pursue a career in the music industry.  Read more…

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Maria Gaetana Agnesi – mathematician

Brilliant scholar gave her time and money to the poor

Maria Gaetana Agnesi, the first woman to write a mathematics handbook, was born on this day in 1718 in Milan.  Maria became a mathematician, philosopher, theologian and humanitarian and was also the first woman to be appointed as a mathematics professor at a university.  She was one of at least 21 children born to Pietro Agnese, a wealthy man whose family had made their money from silk production. Her mother was his first wife, Anna Fortunato Brivio, who was from a noble Milanese family.  Maria was soon recognised as a child prodigy, who could speak Italian and French by the time she was five and had learnt Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, German and Latin by the time she was 11.  When she became ill at the age of 12, it was thought to have been because of excessive studying and reading. She was prescribed vigorous dancing and horse riding to improve her health.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Football Kit Italia: The Greatest Kits and Characters of the Golazzo Era, by John Blair

A fascinating and beautifully illustrated account of the glorious decade of 1992–2002, when Italian football reigned supreme on the world footballing stage.  From the catalyst of World Cup Italia ‘90 and Paul Gascoigne’s arrival in Italy in 1992, Serie A became the number-one league in the world, with the British public gaining a ringside seat via Channel 4’s legendary weekly coverage.  Football Kit Italia includes the captivating stories of the players, clubs and kits that defined one of the most iconic periods in football history and changed the landscape of modern sports programming This comprehensive chronicle covers everything from Signori to Batistuta, Kappa to Diadora and Fiorentina to Juventus, with contributions from a diverse set of key television and football-industry figures from the period, with more than 100 eye-catching photos of the greatest Serie A shirts from 1992–2002.  This stunning book will whisk those who were there straight back to the days of Football Italia – and give those who weren’t a tantalising taste of what they missed.

John Blair is a football enthusiast who has collected shirts for 30 years, building a collection of more than 500 shirts. His debut book, A Culture of Kits: The Definitive Guide to Classic Shirt Collecting, was nominated for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year.

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15 May

Debut of Italy’s national football team

Illustrious history began with victory over France

The first official international football match involving Italy took place on this day in 1910 in Milan.  Officially formed four months earlier, the Azzurri made their debut at the Arena Civica in Milan, beating France 6-2 in front of a crowd said to number 4,000 spectators.  The match was refereed by Henry Goodley, an Englishman.  The team’s first goal was scored after 13 minutes by Pietro Lana, a forward with the AC Milan club, who went on to score a hat-trick, including a penalty kick.  In a team dominated by Milan-based players, the other goals were scored by Internazionale’s Virgilio Fossati, Giuseppe Rizzi of the Ausonia-Milano club and Enrico Debernardi, who played for Torino. Fossati, tragically, was killed six years later while fighting for the Italian Army in World War One.  Organised football had begun in Italy in 1898. Read more…

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Anna Maria Alberghetti - singer and actress

Child prodigy who rejected Hollywood to become Broadway star

The actress and operatic singer Anna Maria Alberghetti was born on this day in 1936 in the Adriatic resort of Pesaro.  She moved with her family to the United States in her teens and became a Broadway star, winning a Tony Award in 1962 as best actress in a musical for her performance in Bob Merrill’s Carnival, directed by Gower Champion.  Alberghetti was a child prodigy with music in her blood. Her father was an accomplished musician, an opera singer and concertmaster of the Rome Opera Company, who also played the cello. Her mother was a pianist.  They influenced the direction in which her talent developed and by the age of six she was singing with symphony orchestras with her father as her vocal instructor.  After success touring Europe, Anna Maria was invited to perform in the United States and made her debut at Carnegie Hall in New York at the age of 14. Read more…

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Pippo Barzizza - band leader

Musician was an Italian pioneer of jazz and swing

The musician and bandleader Giuseppe ‘Pippo’ Barzizza, who helped popularise jazz and swing music in Italy during a long and successful career, was born on this day in 1902 in Genoa.  Barzizza was active in music for eight decades but was probably at the peak of his popularity in the 1930s and 40s, when he led the Blue Star and Cetra orchestras.  He continued to be a major figure in popular music until the 1960s and thereafter regularly came out of retirement to show that his talents had not waned.  He died at his home in Sanremo in 1994, just a few weeks before his 93rd birthday.  As well as arranging the music of others, Barzizza wrote more than 200 songs of his own in his lifetime, and helped advance the careers of such singers as Alberto Rabagliati, Otello Boccaccini, Norma Bruni, Maria Jottini and Silvana Fioresi among others. Read more…

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Fisichella was a leading
performer of Bellini operas

Salvatore Fisichella - operatic tenor

Singer was called the most outstanding interpreter of Bellini of his day

Opera singer Salvatore Fisichella, who won international acclaim for his interpretations of the leading roles in Bellini’s operas, was born on this day in 1943 in Catania in Sicily.  Recognised for the ease and vocal brilliance of his singing, Fisichella has specialised in performing in bel canto operas, especially those of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini.  He began singing when he was a small child at family parties. He was taught music at the local seminary and from the age of ten sang solos during church services.  After leaving the seminary, Fisichella attended a secondary school that had a science-based curriculum and then studied to become a surveyor. Once qualified as a surveyor, he had little time for singing, but one day, at the wedding of one of his clients, he found himself filling in for the tenor, who had been scheduled to perform but whose arrival was delayed. Read more… 

Battle of Calatafimi

The Expedition of the Thousand gets off to a good start

Garibaldi won his first victory during his invasion of Sicily on this day in 1860 at Calatafimi near Trapani.  His army of Redshirts beat a larger number of Neapolitan troops representing The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, who had been sent from Palermo to block the roads to the Sicilian capital. Four days before the battle, Garibaldi’s ‘Thousand,’ known as I Mille in Italian, had landed at Marsala and set off on a direct route to Palermo.  A Neapolitan Brigadier General, Francesco Landi, was sent to intercept Garibaldi and his volunteer troops before they could get to Palermo.  Landi deployed 2,700 men, as well as cannons and horse artillery, on a terraced hill called Pianto dei Romani, forcing Garibaldi into having to attack them uphill to get past them and continue with his journey. The Neapolitan troops were better armed than Garibaldi’s men. Read more…

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Claudio Monteverdi – composer

Baroque musician who gave us the first real opera

The composer and musician Claudio Monteverdi was baptised on this day in 1567 in Cremona in Lombardy.  Children were baptised soon after their birth in the 16th century so it is likely Monteverdi was born on 15 May or just before.  He was to become the most important developer of a new genre, the opera, and bring a more modern touch to church music.  Monteverdi studied under the maestro di cappella at the cathedral in Cremona and published several books of religious and secular music while still in his teens.  He managed to secure a position as a viola player at Vincenzo Gonzaga’s court in Mantua where he came into contact with some of the top musicians of the time. He went on to become master of music there in 1601.  It was his first opera, L’Orfeo, written for the Gonzaga court, that really established him as a composer.  Read more…

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Book of the Day: Calcio: A History of Italian Football, by John Foot

The first history of Italian football to be written in English, Calcio: A History of Italian Football is a mix of serious analysis and comic storytelling, with vivid descriptions of games, goals, dives, missed penalties, riots and scandals in the sometimes richest and toughest league in the world.  Calcio tells the story of Italian football from its origins in the 1890’s to the present day. It takes us through a history of great players and teams, of style, passion and success, but also of violence, cynicism, catenaccio tactics and corruption.  We meet the personalities that have shaped this history – from the Italian heroes to the foreigners that failed, the model professionals to the mavericks. Calcio evokes the triumphs (the 1982 World Cup victory) and the tragedies (Meroni, the 'Italian George Best', killed by his number one fan), set against a backdrop of paranoia and intrigue, in a country where the referee is seen as corrupt until proven otherwise.

John Foot, whose father, Paul, was a noted investigative journalist, is an English academic and historian specialising in Italy. His other books include Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism, The Archipelago: Italy Since 1945, and Pedalare! Pedalare!: A History of Italian Cycling.

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