MAGNANI, ANNA

born March 7, 1908, Alexandria died Sept. 26, 1973, Rome Italian actress, best known for her forceful portrayals of earthy, lower class women. Deserted first by her father and then by her mother, Magnani was raised in a Roman slum by her grandparents. She attended the Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome for a short time before joining a touring repertory company. As an entertainer in Roman nightclubs, she specialized in bawdy street songs and in vaudeville. She made her film debut in La cieca di Sorrento (1934; The Blind Woman of Sorrento). In Roma citt aperta (1945; Open City), the film, directed by Roberto Rossellini that heralded the Neorealist movement in Italian filmmaking, she achieved international renown. Representative of her many roles, in which she often portrayed emotions that ranged from mental torment and deep grief to exuberant comedy, were the dynamic housewife in L'onorevole Angelina (1947), who led a fight against black-marketeering in postwar Italy; a village idiot in Il miracolo (1948; The Miracle), who was seduced by a stranger she imagined to be her special saint; an aggressive stage mother in Bellissima (1951); the robust widow of a truck driver in The Rose Tattoo (1955), her first Hollywood film, for which she won the Academy Award for best actress; and the wife of an Italian mayor in The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1968).