Biography of Silvana Mangano

(Rome, 1930 - Madrid, 1989)

Silvana Mangano was the daughter of a Sicilian railwayman and an English mother. Nurturing dreams of a career in dancing, she studied ballet under Jia Ruskaja , took part in several beauty contests – at the age of 16 she was voted Miss Rome – and earned walk-on parts in a number of quite fine films (“Flesh will surrender (Il delitto di Giovanni Episcopo)”, 1947, by Alberto Lattuada). Her big break came out of the blue with “Bitter rice (Riso amaro)” (1949) by Giuseppe De Santis : here, as a provocative, pale-skinned rice-weeder, brazen faced with her stockings mid-thigh, she established herself as the first Italian sex symbol of the post-war period, a kind of Italian response to Hollywood’s Rita Hayworth. Her marriage that same year to producer Dino De Laurentiis enabled her to steer her film career in the right direction: subsequently she had the opportunity to work alongside the most successful Italian actors (Gassman, Vallone, Nazzari, Sordi) and international screen stars (Douglas, Quinn, Perkins), directed by renowned movie makers (Camerini, De Sica, Lizzani, Monicelli, Visconti, Pasolini). She was again seductive and passionate in “The wolf of the Sila (Il lupo della Sila)” (1949) by Duilio Coletti and in “Outlaw girl (Il brigante Mugolino)” (1950) by Camerini, in “Anna” (1952) by Lattuada she played a nightclub dancer turned nun and in “Every day’s a holiday (L’oro di Napoli)” (1954; the segment “Teresa”) by Vittorio De Sica she portrayed a prostitute who gets married. She was the leading lady again alongside Yves Montand in a film by De Santis, “The wolves (Uomini e lupi)” (1957), and even tried her hand at comedy roles – in “The great war (La grande guerra)” (1959) by Mario Monicelli and in “Criminals (Crimen)” (1961) by Mario Camerini – though she preferred dramatic parts, like the intense Edda Ciano in “The Verona trial (Il processo di Verona)” (1963) by Carlo Lizzani. Becoming increasingly selective in her choices, she later chose to appear in quality works directed by Pasolini (she played Giocasta in “Oedipus Rex (Edipo re)”, 1967, a restless middle class woman in “Theroem (Teorema)”, 1968) and by Visconti (in “Death in Venice (Morte a Venezia)”, 1971, she played Tadzio’s mother; in “Ludwig”, 1973, and in “Conversation piece (Gruppo di famiglia in un interno)”, 1974, she played troubled and treacherous characters). She retired from the cinema in the mid Seventies to devote herself to her family, but returned in 1984 with a part in “Dune” by David Lynch, produced by her daughter Raffaella; lastly, in her parting role she gave an unforgettable performance as the wife of the atypical traveller - the marvellous Marcello Mastroianni – in the film “Dark eyes (Oci Ciornie)” (1987) by Nikita Michalkov. Devastated by the sudden and unexpected death of her adored son Federico, she separated from her husband – with whom she had moved to the United States – and returned to Europe. Here, succumbing to lung cancer, she died in 1989 in a Madrid clinic.

F.T.