Rossano Brazzi (18 September 1916 – 24 December 1994) was an Italian actor.

Spouses

Lidia Bertolini (1940–81; her death)
Ilse Fischer (1984–94; his death)

Biography

Brazzi was born in Bologna, Italy, the son of Maria Ghedini and Adelmo Brazzi, an employee of the Rizzoli shoe factory. He was named after Rossano Veneto, where his father was stationed during his military service in World War I. Brazzi attended San Marco University[2] in Florence, Italy, where he was raised from the age of four. He made his film debut in 1939.

He was propelled to international fame with his role in the English-language film Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), followed by the leading male role in David Lean's Summertime (1955), opposite Katharine Hepburn. In 1958, he played the lead as Frenchman Emile De Becque in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. His other notable English-language films include The Barefoot Contessa (1954), The Story of Esther Costello (1957), opposite Joan Crawford, Count Your Blessings (1959),The Light in the Piazza (1962), and The Italian Job(1969).

Personal life

Marriages and relationships

In 1940, Brazzi married baroness Lidia Bertolini (1921–1981) to whom he was married until her death from liver cancer in 1981. The couple had no children. However, he did father a son, George Llewellyn Brady (born 24 July 1955), from a relationship with 20-year-old Llewella Humphreys (1934–1992), the daughter of American mobster Murray Humphreys. Llewella Humphreys later changed her name to Luella Brady, an anglicization of Brazzi. In 1984, Rossano Brazzi married Ilse Fischer, a German national, who had been the couple's housekeeper for many years. Originally from Düsseldorf, Fischer had met Brazzi as an infatuated fan in Rome at the age of twenty-four. This marriage was also childless.

Death

Brazzi died in Rome on Christmas Eve 1994, aged 78, from a neural virus.

Selected filmography

• Il destino in tasca (1938)
• Piccolo hotel (1939)
• Processo e morte di Socrate (1939) as Simmia
• Bridge of Glass (1940) as comandante Mario Marchi
• Kean (1940) as Edmund Kean
• Ritorno (1940) as Michele Donato, alias Mac Dynar
• La fuerza bruta (1941) as Fred
• Tosca (1941) as Mario Cavaradossi
• Il bravo di Venezia (1941) as Guido Fuser, suo figlio
• The King's Jester (1941) as Il re Francesco Iº
• A Woman Has Fallen (1941) as Roberto Frassi
• We the Living (1942) as Leo Kovalenski
• Girl of the Golden West (1942) as William / Manuel
• La Gorgona (1942) sa Lamberto Finquinaldo
• I due Foscari (1942) as Jacopo Foscari
• Piazza San Sepolcro (1942)
• Maria Malibran (1943) as Carlo de Beriot
• Back Then (1943) as Pablo, Radrennfahrer und Clown
• Il treno crociato (1943) as Il tenente Alberto Lauri
• Silenzio, si gira! (1943) as Andrea Corsi
• The Ten Commandments (1945) (segment "Non commettere atti impuri")
• La Resa di Titì (1945) as Guido, il diplomatico
• La casa senza tempo (1945) as Capitano Paolo Sivera
• Paese senza pace (1946) as Tita Nane
• Malìa (1946) as Cola, cognato di Jana
• Black Eagle (1946) as Vladimir Dubrowskij
• La monaca di Monza (1947)
• La grande aurora (1947) as Renzo Gamba
• Fury (1947) as Antonio
• Bullet for Stefano (1947) as Stefano Pelloni
• The Courier of the King (1947) as Julien Sorel
• Il diavolo bianco (1947) as Prince André Mdwani as Il diavolo bianco
• Eleonora Duse (1947) as Arrigo Boito
• I contrabbandieri del mare (1948) as Mario
• Little Women (1949) as Professor Bhaer
• Volcano (1950) as Donato
• The Fighting Men (1950) as Saro Costa
• Romanzo d'amore (1950) as Enrico Toselli
• The Black Crown (1951) as Andrés
• Tragic Spell (1951) as Pietro
• Revenge of Black Eagle (1951) as Vladimir Dubrovskij
• The Mistress of Treves (1952) as Sigfrido, conte di Treviri
• The Woman Who Invented Love (1952) as Conte Grilli
• Milady and the Musketeers (1952) as Conte de la Fere aka Athos
• Eran trecento (1952) as Volpintesta
• Son of the Hunchback (1952) as Philippe de Lagardère
• L'ingiusta condanna (1952) as Carlo Rocchi
• Prisoner in the Tower of Fire (1953) as Cesare Borgia
• Carne de horca (1953) as Juan Pablo de Osuna
• C'era una volta Angelo Musco (1953) as The story-teller
• La Chair et le Diable (1954) as Giuseppe Guardini
• Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) as Georgio Bianchi
• La contessa di Castiglione (1954) as Le comte de Cavour
• The Barefoot Contessa (1954) as Count Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini
• Angela (1954) as Nino
• La barriera della legge (1954) as Lt. Mario Grandi
• The Last Five Minutes (1955) as Dino Moriani
• Summertime (1955) as Renato de Rossi
• Il conte Aquila (1955) as Conte Federico Confalonieri
• Faccia da mascalzone (1956)
• Loser Takes All (1956) as Bertrand
• The Story of Esther Costello (1957) as Carlo Landi
• Interlude (1957) as Tonio Fischer
• Legend of the Lost (1957) as Paul Bonnard
• South Pacific (1958) as Emile De Becque
• A Certain Smile (1958) as Luc Ferrand
• Count Your Blessings (1959) as Charles Edouard de Valhubert
• Siege of Syracuse (1960) as Archimede
• Austerlitz (1960) as Lucien Bonaparte
• Mondo cane (1962) as Himself
• The Light in the Piazza (1962) as Signor Naccarelli
• Rome Adventure (1962) as Roberto Orlandi
• Redhead (1962) as Fabio
• Three Fables of Love (1962) as Leo (segment "Le lièvre et le tortue")
• Dark Purpose (1964) as Count Paolo Barbarelli
• La ragazza in prestito (1964) as Mario Menacci
• Instant Love (1964) - Claudio DeSantis
• The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1965) as Lorenzo
• Un amore (1965) as Antonio Dorigo
• The Christmas That Almost Wasn't (1966) as Phineas T. Prune
• The Bobo (1967) as Carlos Matabosch
• La ragazza del bersagliere (1967) as Fernando Moschino
• Per amore... per magia... (1967) as Il narratore
• Woman Times Seven (1967) as Giorgio (segment "Amateur Night")
• Gli altri, gli altri... e noi (1967)
• King of Africa (1968) as Dr. Hamilton
• Criminal Affair (1968) as Ross Simpson
• Krakatoa, East of Java (1969) as Giovanni Borghese
• Il diario segreto di una minorenne (è nata una donna)(1968)
• Psychout for Murder (1969) as Brigoli
• The Italian Job (1969) as Beckerman
• Vita segreta di una diciottenne (1969)
• The Adventurers (1970) as Baron de Coyne
• Intimità proibita di una giovane sposa (1970) as Adolfo Rogano
• Trittico (1971) as Andrea, the Surgeon
• Mister Kingstreet's War (1971) as Major Bernadelli
• Vivi ragazza vivi! (1971) as padre di Barbara
• Drummer of Vengeance (1971) as The Sheriff
• Racconti proibiti... di niente vestiti (1972) as Lorenzo del Cambio
• The Great Waltz (1972) as Tedesco
• Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks (1974) as Count Frankenstein
• Giro girotondo... con il sesso è bello il mondo (1975)
• Dracula in the Provinces (1975) as Dr. Paluzzi
• Gli angeli dalle mani bendate (1975)
• Season for Assassins (1975) as Father Eugenio
• Political Asylum (1975) as Ambassador Lara
• Caribia (1978)
• Mr. Too Little (1978) as Zabo The Great
• Catherine and I (1980) as Arthur
• Champagne... e fagioli (1980) as Narrator (uncredited)
• Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981) as DeCarlo
• Anche i ladri hanno un santo (1981)
• Il paramedico (1982) as Augusto Pinna
• The Far Pavilions (1982)
• Fear City (1984) as Carmine
• Final Justice (1985) as Don Lamanna
• Formula for a Murder (1985) as Dr. Sernich
• The Third Solution (1988) as Marini
• Fatal Frames - Fotogrammi mortali (1996) as Dr. Lucidi (final film role)