The Eternal Allure Of Anna Magnani

When I was five years old I accompanied my mother to see a film of a Tennessee Williams play called “The Rose Tattoo”. Back in the 1950’s there were no film ratings and no prohibitions about taking children just about anywhere. As a result, I ended up in some pretty strange situations – but when you’re a kid, it’s all just “More fun!” Today, if I were a five year old, I probably wouldn't be allowed to get within 20 feet of a theater showing this kind of steamy content. I’m not sure why I've always remembered this experience; I don’t even remember the plot and had to look it up to see what it was about. Perhaps it's because it was probably one of the last times my mother and I went anywhere in her little yellow Nash Rambler before she got sick. Magnani plays an Italian widow who’s withdrawn from the world, living in Louisiana and raising her teenage daughter. Big fun ensues when she discovers that the husband who's loss she's been grieving over for years had been two-timing her right up until the day the cops shot him for some petty crime. The "other" woman defiantly gets a rose tattoo like the dead man to commemorate their illicit love. Burt Lancaster shows up with a bad haircut and then also buys himself a $2.50 tattoo like the husband’s, trying to find a way into Magnani's heart. (Wrong!) It just occured to me it would have been pretty funny if by the end of the film, everyone in the audience ended up getting a rose tattoo as well. The plot is pretty over-the-top, and definitely not one of Williams’ better efforts, but it served as an excellent showcase for the depth and breadth of Magnani’s ability to throw one heck of a never-ending tantrum. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for this film. See Rossellini’s “Open City”, if you want to see a truly heart-breaking example of the nuanced performance she was capable of creating.

Born March 7, 1908, in Alexandria, Egypt, Magnani was raised by her grandmother in the slums of Rome. She studied acting at Santa Cecilia's Corso Eleanora Duse but began her performing career as a nightclub singer before moving on to variety theaters and stock and then to film. She worked with all of the greats; Visconti, Pasolini, Renoir.

Middle-aged when she became "a star," Magnani had already spent 20 years putting together the persona with which she would be forever identified: a vital, physical woman of the people, brimming with bawdy wit and tragic depth. Revelling in her own glorious decay, she would never shy away from a role just because she was afraid it might make her look bad; the cornerstone of her art was instinct, not image -- less technique than unbridled ego. When Magnani played a mother, as she often did, there was never any hemming and hawing about the potential pitfalls of self-sacrifice -- and when she played a hooker, which she often also did, it was no Pretty Woman. I can’t think of an actress working today who embodies the same passion and intensity that she brought to every role. She appeared in her last film in 1969 and died in 1973.

As a young adult, I had a Fotofolio postcard of Magnani on my dining room table. She was in profile, pensively clasping a bullfighter’s jacket. The table also served as my workspace for my collages and constructions, so I spent a considerable amount of time in the presence of that image. It was a beautiful picture and I wish I knew where it was now. I’ve found what I consider an acceptable substitute to accompany this post, but the emotion conveyed is a very different one. Nevertheless, isn’t her face amazing?