Feminine icons
She was one of the most popular Italian actresses of the 50s and 60s of the last century, where she played dozens of characters since the dawn of Italian cinema.
The actress and director Silvana Pampanini, with a long career in film, theater and television, was born in Rome on September 25, 1925, also dying in the Italian capital on January 6, 2016. Silvana, who was the niece of the soprano Rosetta Pampanini , belonged to an important generation of postwar Italian actresses, with films based on exuberant beauties such as Gina Lollobrigida, Claudia Cardinale, Silvana Mangano and Sophia Loren, who were called ‘maggioratas’. Silvana Pampanini was one of the most popular Italian actresses of the 1950s and 1960s, where she played dozens of characters since the dawn of Italian cinema. He also made films in France, Spain, Japan, Mexico and Argentina, being considered a sex symbol in the 50s.
Pampanini briefly studied singing at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome. At the age of 26, she was discovered in a pageant, becoming Miss Italy. The producers who at that time were in search of new faces for the cinema quickly signed her. He made his debut in ‘L’apocalisse’ (1946), by Giuseppe María Scotese. As of this year, and in a very intense way, he appeared in films of unequal fortune in which, basically, he sought to take advantage of the image that a certain traditional comedy of the time required.
His first international success would come with ‘OK Nerón’ (1951), directed by Mario Soldati, a parody of ‘Quo vadis?’ written by Mario Monicelli, thanks to which it would achieve popular recognition in both Europe and North America. In addition to her lighter and varietal range, the actress demonstrated her dramatic skills in many of the emerging neo-realist films of the time.
The actress was appreciated in France, where she was called Nini Pampan. There she was shown naked incarnating the dissipated Queen Margaret of Burgundy in ‘The Tower of Nesle’, by Abel Gance. In Spain, in 1954 he starred in the film ‘Tirma’, shot in Gran Canaria. Carlos Serrano de Osma was responsible for 70% of the film’s footage, but the need for financial help caused the producers to contact Italy, which was imposed on the director Pablo Moffa, who filmed the remaining 30%. She was accompanied in the cast by Marcello Mastroianni as the first actor. The theme was the Castilian conquest of the Canaries. In Mexico, he starred, with Pedro Armendáriz, in the film ‘Sed de amor’ (1958), a very crude and violent drama.
Its attractiveness and charm began to be reflected in films by Giacomo Gentilomo, Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, Mario Soldati, Luigi Zampa, Rafaello Matarazzo, Luigi Comencini or Dino Risi. He worked with other important actors such as Buster Keaton, Vittorio Gasman, Marcello Mastroianni, Alberto Sordi, Totó, Jean Gabin, Henry Vidal, Abel Gance, Vittorio De Sica. Although she did not shine as much as Silvana Mangano, Claudia Cardinale, Sofía Loren or Gina Lollobrigida, she had her share of popular success due to her opulent and suggestive forms that effectively contrasted with her way of interpreting each of her characters.
In 1955 he visited New York, Denver and Hollywood but turned down job offers because he did not speak English well and because he had some problems with the tax office. In Argentina, a country where he arrived in the early 1960s, in 1965 he filmed ‘An Italian in Argentina’, together with Vittorio Gassman. He also ventured into the theater by doing a show in Santiago de Chile with Estela Raval and Los Cinco Latinos. In the last years of his life he had taken refuge in television, but he left behind a filmography of more than 60 titles that make up the incomparable testament of an entire era, always keeping his crown of lofty ‘maggiorata’ intact.
Silvana Pampanini never married or had children, although she always had a reputation as a true heartthrob. It is claimed that they fell at his feet from the Afghan king Ahmad Shah Kan to Faruq I of Egypt, through the international sex symbols Tyrone Power or Omar Sharif, until they ended up in confessed admirers such as Orson Welles. She always denied any affair. However, in her biography the actress said that her true love was a millionaire older than her, whose identity she never revealed and who died a month before they married. Her fame spread to half the world and even the emperor of Japan Hiro Hito skipped all the protocols to entertain her.
The actress died in a hospital in Rome on January 6, 2016 at the age of 90, due to complications from an abdominal operation carried out months before.
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