General Józef
Wybicki
Junior High School
Number 24 in Lodz
European citizens in
my city,
the citizens of my city in Europe.
Liceo Scientifico "Pitagora" Rende, Italy
Raf Vallone
Raffaele Vallone was born 17 February
1916,Tropea,Calabria,Italy.He died 31 October 2002,Rome,Italy.
Raf Vallone was an internationally acclaimed Italian movie star known
for his rugged good looks.The athletic Vallone,a former soccer player
who often was compared to Burt Lancaster,was born Raffaele Vallone in
1916 in Tropea in Calabria,Italy,the son of a prominent lawyer andhis
aristocratic wife.At the university of Turin,Vallone took degrees in law
and philosophy and then entered his father’s law firm.
Vallone played semi-professional soccer but never realized his dream of
becoming a professional athlete.Subsequently,he became a sports reporter
for “L’Unità”,a communist newspaper,and also a dramacritic for “La
Stampa”.During World War 2,Vallone served with the anti-Fascist
resistance.
His first job as a movie actor was a bit part in Noi vivi (1942),but
Vallone was not serious about acting as a career.Hired as a researcher
on a film about labor unrest,director Giuseppe De Santis cast Vallone as
a soldier competing with Vittorio Gassman for the love of Silvana
Mangano in what became the neo-realistic classic Riso amaro (1949).The
film propelled Vallone,pronounced a natural actor by De Saintis,into
international stardom and ended his journalism career.
Vallone became a major star in Italy in the 1950s and then a player in
the global film industry,making movies in Italian,French and
English.Vallone achieved popularity with American audiences in the
1960s,starting with his supporting roles in La Ciociara (1960) and El
Cid (1961),both co-starring Sophia Loren.Other major actresses he
co-starred with on film and stage included Gina Lollobrigida,Anna
Magnani,Melina Mercuori,Simone Signoret,and Elena Varzi,to whom he was
married for 52 years,until his death in 2002.
Vallone’s first “American” role was as the incest-minded
Italian-American longshoreman Eddie Carbone in Sidney Lumet’s film of
Arthur Miller’s Vu du pont (1961).Other prominent roles in American
films included Otto Preminger’s The Cardinal (1963),Roger Corman’s The
Secret Invasion (1964),Harlow (1965) starring Carroll Baker,and Henry
Hathaway’s Nevada Smith (1966).
Vallone played many priests during his long career,culminating with the
cardinal-confessor of mobster Michael Corleone,a priest who becomes pope
and is murdered by the Mafia,in Francis Ford Coppola’s The
Godfather:part 3(1990).Appearing for the other side,Vallone was
memorable as the Mafia boss Altabani in the original The Italian Job
(1969).