Oscar-nominated ‘Rose Tattoo’ actress turns 91 – The Hollywood Reporter

Marissa Pavan

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Marisa Pavan, Italian actress and twin sister of Pier Angeli who received an Academy Award nomination for her performance as the daughter of seamstress Anna Magnani in the 1955 drama Rose tattoos, He died. She was 91 years old.

Pavan died Wednesday in her sleep at her home in Gassines, France, near Saint-Tropez. Margot Somoy, who wrote a 2021 biography of Pavan, dropping the baby; Put the veil on wide!Tell Hollywood Reporter.

Pavan also depicted the French Queen Catherine de Medici in it Diane (1956), starring Lana Turner; An Italian girl had an affair years ago with a company executive (Gregory Peck). The man in the gray flannel suit (1956); and the love interest of an ex-cop (Tony Curtis) who investigates the murder of a priest in film noir Midnight story (1957).

At Paramount Rose tattoos (1955), an adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play that won four Tony Awards, including Best Play, Pavan was unforgettable as the powerful Rosa Delle Rose alongside Magnani, Burt Lancaster, Joe Van Fleet, and Ben Cooper. Williams adapted the screenplay with Hal Kanter.

The film, directed by Daniel Mann and shot by James Wong Howe in Florida, was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, of which it won three. Pavan lost Oscar night to VanVleet – for whom he did not win Rose tattoos But for East of Aden – but she made it to the podium at the Pantages, receiving the Citizenship Magnani Award for Best Actress.

Maria Luisa Pirangeli and her sister (birth name Anna Maria Pirangeli, who was a few minutes older) were born on June 19, 1932, in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. Their father, Luigi, was an architect and building engineer, and their mother, Enrica, was a housewife who one day dreamed of becoming an actress.

“My mother adored Shirley Temple and took us to see all her films,” Pavan said in Jane Allen’s 2002 book. Pier Angeli: A Fragile Life. “She even dressed us like Shirley Temple, hence the big bows in our hair.”

The family moved to Rome in the mid-1930s and was threatened when the Nazis occupied the city.

When Anna was sixteen, she was strolling along Via Veneto on her way home from art school when she was discovered by Vittorio De Sica, and she played a teenager on the verge of sexual awakening before him. Tomorrow is too late (1950). This brought her to the attention of MGM, which cast her Teresa (1951), he signed her to a seven-year contract and gave her the stage name Pier Angeli.

Angeli and her sister then moved to Los Angeles, and Maria, who had no acting experience, signed with Fox. Newly christened Marissa Pavan, she made her big screen debut as a French girl in John Ford’s World War I set What is the price of glory? (1952), starring James Cagney and Dan Dailey.

Pavan then appeared in 1954 in the film noir Down three dark streets And in the West Drum beatstarring Broderick Crawford and Alan Ladd, respectively, before it broke out Rose tattoos.

Pavan also co-starred in a pair of epic adventures released in 1959, playing John Farrow’s love interest, Robert Stack. John Paul Jones (1959) and the maid Abishag in King Vidor Solomon and Sheba (1959). In the latter, she worked alongside Yul Brynner, who joined the film in Spain after the sudden death of Tyrone Power.

Pavan worked mainly in television after that, with stints on shows like US steel hues, Naked city, 77 Sunset Strip, fighting!, FBI, Wonder Woman, Hawaii Five-O And Rockford Files.

In 1976, she appeared as Kirk Douglas’s mentally ill wife in Arthur Haley’s NBC series. Money changersShe played Chantal Dubujac, the mother of crime boss Max Dubujac (Daniel Pilon), in the 1985 ABC television series. Hope Ryan.

Angeli, who dated James Dean before marrying singer Vic Damone and portrayed the wife of champion boxer Rocky Marciano (played by Paul Newman) in 1956 Someone out there loves me, He died in 1971 at the age of 39 of a barbiturate overdose in a Beverly Hills apartment. It has never been confirmed whether she died by suicide or suffered a reaction to the medication prescribed to her.

Pavan was married to French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont (her colleague in… John Paul Jones) from 1956 until his death in 2001. Survivors include her two sons, Jean-Claude (cinematographer) and Patrick, and her younger sister, Patrizia Pirangeli, also an actress.