One hundred years of Marcello Mastroianni, a “special Italian”

Marcello Mastroianni, the global icon of Italian cinema, would have turned 100 this year. He was born in Fontana Liri (Frosinone) on September 26, 1924. Able to juggle comedies with dramatic roles, he is still associated today with his fame as a Latin lover, memorable roles in Federico Fellini's films and his long artistic partnership with Sophia Loren.

He made his film debut in 1948 in I miserabili by Riccardo Freda. This marked the start of a long career that would establish him internationally in only a few years and which continued until his death from illness on December 19, 1996. His last films, Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember by Anna Maria Tatò, his spiritual testament, and Journey to the Beginning of the World by Manoel de Oliveira, were released posthumously in 1997.

Marcello's roles and awards

Mastroianni came close to winning an Oscar three times, nominated for his roles as Baron Ferdinando "Fefè" Cefalù, who tries to get rid of his wife so he can run away with his sixteen-year-old niece in Divorce Italian Style (Pietro Germi, 1961); solitary homosexual Gabriele in A Special Day (Ettore Scola, 1977) set in 1938 in a Rome in turmoil following Hitler's visit; and tormented Romano Patroni in Oci ciornie (Nikita Sergeevic Michalkov, 1987).

Academy Award aside, recognition for his craft was not lacking. The many awards he received include 2 Golden Globes; 2 BAFTAs; 8 David di Donatello; 2 Prix d'interprétation masculine at the Cannes Film Festival: 1970 for Dramma della gelosia (tutti i particolari in cronaca) (Ettore Scola), with Monica Vitti and Giancarlo Giannini; and 1987 for Oci ciornie (Nikita Sergeevi? Michalkov); 2 Coppa Volpi at the Venice Film Festival: Che ora è (Ettore Scola, 1989) shared with Massimo Troisi and Uno, due, tre, stella! (Bertrand Blier, 1993). In Venice he was also awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 1990.

It is impossible to list all the roles he played: for Luchino Visconti he was Mario, protagonist of White Nights, inspired by Fyodor Dostoevsky’s story, and others; for Michelangelo Antonioni he was Giovanni, a successful writer in crisis with his wife (Jeanne Moreau) who has a brief flirtation with Monica Vitti in Night (1961) set in Milan and awarded the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival; and for Mauro Bolognini he was Il bell’Antonio (1960). For Antonio Pietrangeli he was Piero Silvagni in Adua e le compagne (1960), about prostitution in Italy after approval of the 1958 Merlin law, and the ghost Reginaldo di Roviano, an 18^th-century libertine who died to escape a jealous husband, and his descendant Federico di Roviano in Ghosts in Rome (1961); for Mario Monicelli he was the unforgettable charlatan thief Tiberio Braschi in I soliti ignoti (1958) with partners Vittorio Gassman (Peppe er Pantera), Tiberio Murgia (Ferribotte), Renato Salvatori (Mario), Carlo Pisacane (Capannelle) and “consultant” Toto (Dante Cruciani); the socialist intellectual in I compagni (1963); and a singular tombeur des femmes travelling around Italy in Casanova ’70 (1965).

Marcello, Fellini and ‘La dolce vita’

Mastroianni is inextricably linked to Federico Fellini, not only for the leading roles the great director chose him for, but also, in particular, for playing his “alter ego” a creatively blocked director, in 8½ (1963), with Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimée and Sandra Milo (Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Costumes in 1964).

His fame as a seducer, however, came earlier, with Fellini’s masterpiece La Dolce Vita (1960), which also starred Anita Ekberg. In the nostalgic and decadent Rome of the early Sixties, via Veneto throngs with a host of social characters, more or less well-known faces, including stars, nobles, rich people and, of course, paparazzi. Marcello, an unscrupulous tabloid journalist and aspiring writer, recounts the parties, excesses and nightlife, inevitably becoming a part of it.

He worked with Fellini again in 1980 on City of Women, as Marcello Snàporaz, who, in pursuing a flirt, finds himself implicated in an unusual trial.

He played an elderly tap dancer in Ginger e Fred (1986), invited with his former partner (Giulietta Masina) to participate in a television show to perform the routine that made them famous 30 years earlier. As in La Dolce Vita, the Rome of Ginger e Fred is decadent: dominated by degradation and half-naked women winking from billboards.

In 1987, he played himself in Intervista, a film where Fellini combined episodes of his life with elements of fiction, alongside a young Sergio Rubini.

It was Fellini himself who handed Marcello the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement awarded by the Venice Film Festival in 1990.

Mastroianni and Sophia Loren – Italy’s cinematic golden couple

When one thinks of a couple in cinema, the artistic partnership between Marcello and Sophia immediately comes to mind: they often played lovers, fiancés, and married couples, the perfect chemistry they created strengthened by a great and sincere friendship.

They first met on the set of Cuori sul mare (Giorgio Bianchi, 1950). Sophia, 16 years old, was still Sofia Scicolone and making her film debut as an extra. Then, in 1950, director Alessandro Blasetti chose Marcello and Sophia to play the leads in his Peccato che sia una canaglia.

In total, they acted together in 14 films, some of which were destined to make the history of Italian cinema and beyond.

The striptease scene with the lustful Mastroianni howling to the tune of Abat jour in Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Vittorio De Sica, 1963), awarded the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 1965, has become iconic. In Marriage Italian Style (Vittorio De Sica, 1964) Marcello is Domenico Soriano, an impertinent womanizer, living in Palazzo Pandola in piazza del Gesù Nuovo, Naples, who capitulates to a clever ploy by Sophia Loren as his lover of twenty years, former prostitute Filumena Marturano.

In the heart-breaking A Special Day (1977), set in a Roman apartment building during Hitler's visit to the city in 1938, Ettore Scola gave them the intense roles of a homosexual persecuted by the regime and an unhappy housewife.

Marcello Mio! Tributes for the 100^th anniversary of his birth

Marcello mio, written and directed by Christophe Honoré (2024), is a tribute to the actor which premiered on May 21, 2024 in competition at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and was released in theatres immediately after. One particularly difficult summer, his daughter Chiara, born from his relationship with Catherine Deneuve, decides to bring her father back to life through herself: she dresses like him, speaks like him, breathes like him, with such strength that those around her begin to believe it and call her "Marcello".

The poster of the 19^th edition of the Rome Film Fest portrays the famous actor in one of his most iconic roles on the set of Federico Fellini's 8½.

• Discover the locations of Marcello Mastroianni's films in our Film, TV series & Games section.