RIP Marisa Pavan (1932-2023)
Goodbye to fellow twin and a very likeable leading lady, Marisa Pavan.
https://thetinseltowntwins.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/cropped-nils.jpg?w=32
The Tinseltown Twins
Fellow twin Marisa Pavan went into films after her twin, Pier Angeli, started working in the medium (Pierangeli was actually their real last name). Despite having no official training, Pavan was signed to a contract at 19. It’s no wonder why. She was sweet, relatable, and very cute. She and Angeli did look alike, though they were easy not to mistake for each other, since they were fraternal. Usually if twins had the fortune of being in films, they worked together as a team (the Fairbanks and Wilde twins, for example), but Angeli and Pavan were able to have separate careers and film personas. Even though Pavan was beautiful and about as likeable as actresses come, she often co-starred in films where leading men ignored her. Virginia and I often joke about that and how they must be out of their minds, because we’re always team Marisa.

Pavan’s first film role was the supporting part as Robert Wagner’s love interest in the What Price Glory? (1952) remake. The film also starred James Cagney and Dan Dailey, so it definitely guaranteed that many people saw the film and Marisa. It also helped that she was ideally cast in an innocent role. Pavan, however, mostly stuck to one or two films a year. Her next one was back in her native Italy, Ho scelto l’amore (1953) before returning to Hollywood films for the rest of the decade. Her next part was showier, even though she was still in support, as the blind wife of Gene Reynolds in Down Three Dark Streets (1954). Her scene-stealing performance seemed to guarantee bigger things in her next works. She also began guest-starring on anthology TV around this time.

Her next part started a slew of secondary female roles that men are blind to. It was Drum Beat (1954) with Alan Ladd and Audrey Dalton. While Pavan’s part was sympathetic, Ladd doesn’t notice her over Dalton, even though we the audience sure do. Things got better for Pavan’s characters and her career with The Rose Tattoo (1955), a stunning, very memorable adaptation of the Tennessee Williams’s play. Pavan was perfectly cast as the shy daughter of the Italian Anna Magnani. She was also romantically paired with Ben Cooper with no other ladies to divert his interest. She also accepted the Best Actress Oscar for Magnani when she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. It was back to more secondary roles (despite an Oscar nomination under her belt), however, with the Lana Turner vehicle Diane (1956), though she got to wear pretty costumes. She was also Gregory Peck’s old Italian flame during WWII in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), who I wished Peck would reunite with in the end, even though that obviously wasn’t going to happen in 1950s America.

Pavan’s TV work continued with a particular episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents that stands out and gives her some of her best acting work. It was “You Got to Have Luck” where vulnerable Pavan is held hostage in her home by hoodlum John Cassavetes while her husband is out. It’s a tense and entertaining half an hour. Her film parts also were in a better streak with the actual leading lady part in the fun noir That Midnight Story (1957) with handsome Tony Curtis. The two also made a most charming pair while her role also played up on her sensitive, shy screen persona. Around this time, Pavan worked even more sporadically in films than before, but she had just married Jean-Pierre Aumont so it’s understandable. Who would want to leave him for a second?

She made two big budget films in 1959, John Paul Jones (1959) (which also featured her husband in a special guest role). Once again, Pavan didn’t have to compete for Robert Stack’s affections (but he had to for hers). She was secondary again in Solomon and Sheba (1959), but she still managed to give a good performance with a memorable final scene. While these were two highpoints in terms of budget, Pavan continued to work sporadically and often in foreign films. Her final work during the classic era was in TV films (including playing Margot Frank in a TV production of The Diary of Anne Frank) and foreign films back in Italy. Pavan’s career spanned through the ‘90s, though her most memorable work was in the ‘50s. Her TV appearances included guest spots on such shows as Wonder Woman, Hawaii Five-O, and The Rockford Files, and her films included the Marcello Mastroianni-Catherine Deneuve film A Slightly Pregnant Man (1973).

Pavan’s personal life was divided between success and heartbreak. Her marriage to Jean-Pierre Aumont was successful, spanning to his death in 2001 and resulting in two sons. Her twin sister, however, Pier Angeli, died suddenly from a barbiturate overdose in 1971. Pavan commented that Angeli was turned into what the studio wanted her to be, saying, “it was not my sister I had in front of me anymore. She had become a studios’ product.” It’s unfortunate we never got them in a film together. She also said of her career that she was too demanding and didn’t make films she didn’t want to make, which wasn’t a shortcut to full-blown stardom, but I’m sure Pavan didn’t care. She had an interesting, remarkable life without it.

~Bianca