Nazzari, Amedeo

(1907-1979)

   Actor. Born in Cagliari, Sardinia, as Salvatore Amedeo Buffa, Nazzari had already distinguished himself as a stage actor before moving to films in the mid-1930s. Tall and handsome, and frequently compared in bearing and looks to Errol Flynn, he was often cast in the role of the courageous and principled adventurer with a big heart. His first important role was as the self-sacrificing young cavalry officer in Goffredo Alessandrini's 19th-century costume drama Cavalleria (Cavalry, 1936), which was followed by the similarly heroic self-sacrificing father in Luciano Serra Pilota (1939), also directed by Alessandrini. More dashing but also more villainous was the role of Neri Chiaramontesi that Nazzari played in Alessandro Blasetti's La cena delle beffe (The Jester's Supper, 1941), but the part allowed Nazzari to rip Clara Calamai's bodice in order to expose the first naked bosom in Italian cinema history.

   After the war Nazzari starred in a number of neorealist films including Alberto Lattuada's Il Bandito (The Bandit, 1946), where he played a war veteran forced by circumstances to become a gangster, and Blasetti's Un giorno nella vita (A Day in the Life, 1946), where he was the leader a group of partisans who take refuge in a convent, resulting in tragedy when the Germans take reprisals. In spite of appearing in a wide variety of films during this period, he came to be characterized by his role in a series of weepy melodramas directed by Raffaele Matarazzo, which included Catene (Chains, 1950), Figli di Nessuno (Nobody's Children, 1951), and L'angelo bianco (The White Angel, 1955). In 1957, with typical whimsy, Federico Fellini enticed him to play Alberto Lazzari, an aging and veteran film star much like himself, in Le notti di Cabiria (The Nights of Cabiria, 1957). Nazzari continued to work both in Italy and abroad throughout the 1960s, appearing memorably as the Italian emigre become successful Argentinian cattle baron in Dino Risi's Il gaucho (The Gaucho, 1964). As time went on, however, he came to be cast mostly in supporting roles, often in B-grade crime films. Fittingly, perhaps, his final appearance was in the glaringly titled Melodrammore (1978), a parody of film melodramas written and directed by Maurizio Costanzo, in which Nazzari played himself giving lessons to a younger actor on how to do melodrama.