He worked with Roberto Rossellini, Marco Bellocchio and Federico Fellini. From 1968 to 2018 he founded and directed the theater company ‘Il Gruppo’. Edoardo Torricella, actor and director, who will blow out his 89th candles tomorrow, celebrated 70 years as a vegetarian. At just 19 years old, the actor – born in Milan and who among his various interpretations also boasts Saint Paul in Rossellini’s ‘Acts of the Apostles’ – decided in 1954 to abstain from eating meat and fish, thus demonstrating his closeness to animals. “It was a life choiceI was just of age and I asked myself the problem: I was born here where we eat in a certain way, the Emilian origins where the zampone was at home, but a thousand kilometers away the cow is sacred, the pig too, because I have to eat the corpses of animals?”. This is how Torricella talks to Adnkronos Salute. “Those who don’t eat meat, it’s my opinion after 70 years, every 7 years make an intellectual leap: they are more inclined towards harmony. Everyone should try it”, she suggests.
“At the time – he explains – my family was worried: ‘Will this boy grow up?’, they asked themselves. I decided to give myself a year, I was 18, and see how it would go without meat and fish. I also looked into the I studied the scientific aspect of being a vegetarian. Seeing that everything was going well, at 19 I finally made the choice.” Today, when being a vegetarian, vegan or raw foodist is almost fashionable, what do you think of the choice he made 70 years ago? “I see that there are young people who tend to want to do it, but then they do it superficially – replies the teacher – Even in the 60s it was like this with the hippies. But how do we still eat animal corpses in the third millennium? I’m pleased that young people are approaching the vegetarian diet, but it must be a lifestyle choice, like mine.”
For example, what did you eat for lunch? “Pasta and beans which has almost all the amino acids needed by man, is the meat of the poor, then an omelette with salad and two chucks. I’m fine and I haven’t killed any animals.” Last year the Council of Ministers granted the annuity to Torricella, the allowance provided by the Bacchelli law for illustrious citizens in the world of arts and culture who are in a state of economic need.
To make it clear how ahead of his time Edoardo Torricella’s choice to be a vegetarian was, just mention an episode from his career. “In the ’70s – he recalls – I proposed a radio drama to Rai called ‘Mutante K12’, where the theme of being a vegetarian was also addressed in surreal tones. Nothing came of it. At the time other themes such as workerism, it was thought that workers could teach us to be actors. We know how it ended.” Today Maestro Torricella is working on an autobiography. “I’m writing a book that talks about me with considerations on life and more, including being a vegetarian for 70 years. A choice I would make again“, he concludes.
Over the years, Torricella has expressed several disruptive choices also as an artist, with the experiences of the Avant-garde Theater since 1961 with Carmelo Bene, and then with the Teatro del Nonsenso or the Teatro Aereo, and at the same time with Peppino De Filippo. He worked for Rai playing the ‘uncomfortable’ Don Lorenzo Milani or the crazy Matematicus with Bellocchio and Professor Russo in Fellini’s ‘Giulietta degli Spiriti’.
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