Italy On This Day
Daily guide to anniversaries, festivals, facts and key dates today in Italian history
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Marisa Pavan - actress

Twin sister of tragic star Pier Angeli

The actress Marisa Pavan, whose twin sister Pier Angeli was a Hollywood star in the 1950s and 1960s, was born on this day in 1932 as Maria Luisa Pierangeli in Cagliari, Sardinia. Pavan’s career ran parallel with that of her sister, who was born 20 minutes before her, but she rejected the re-invention as an ultra-glamorous starlet that Pier Angeli underwent within the Hollywood studio system. She turned roles down when she felt they did not have enough substance and did not hesitate to sack agents if she felt they were putting her forward for unsuitable parts. She refused to sign up to any one studio. Her biggest success was The Rose Tattoo, the 1955 film adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play in which she played the daughter of the central character, played by Anna Magnani - with whom she is pictured - one of postwar Italian cinema’s most respected actresses. Magnani won an Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of a Sicilian widow, with Pavan receiving a nomination for best supporting actress at the Academy Awards and although that award went to someone else she did have the substantial compensation of winning a Golden Globe for the role. Read more…

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Francesco Moser - Giro d’Italia winner

Only two riders have won more road races

The cycling champion Francesco Moser, winner of the 1984 Giro d’Italia and the 1977 World road racing championship among 273 road victories in his career, was born on this day in 1951 in Palù di Giovo, a village about 10km (6 miles) north of Trento in northern Italy. Only the great Belgians Eddy Merckx (525) and Rik Van Looy (379) won more road races than Moser, who was at his peak during the late 1970s and early 1980s. One of his proudest achievements was to break Merckx’s record for the greatest distance covered in one hour. He became renowned as a specialist in the so-called Monuments, the five road races among what are generally termed the Classics considered to be the oldest, hardest and most prestigious one-day events in cycling. Of those events, Moser won the Paris-Roubaix three times, the Giro di Lombardia twice and the Milan-San Remo once. Moser attributed his cycling prowess to growing up on the family farm in Val di Cembra, working in steep-sided vineyards in an era when most of the work was carried out by hand, rather than machinery. Family members used bicycles to move around the estate. Read more…

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Pier Angeli - Hollywood star

Actress hailed for talent and beauty died tragically young

The actress Pier Angeli, a Hollywood star in the 1950s and 60s, was born on this day in 1932 in Cagliari, Sardinia. She won awards in Italy and in America at the start of her career, when she was likened by some critics to the Swedish-born star Greta Garbo. Described by the actor Paul Newman as "the most beautiful Italian actress of the century", Angeli was also a fixture in the gossip columns. Linked romantically with a number of Hollywood's leading male actors, she dated Kirk Douglas and became close to the celebrated 'rebel' James Dean before marrying another star, the Italian-American actor and singer, Vic Damone. It would be the first of two marriages. She had a son, Perry, with Damone but they divorced after four years. A second marriage, to the Italian composer, Armando Trovaioli, produced another son, Andrew, but they also divorced. Born Anna Maria Pierangeli, the daughter of an architect, she had a twin sister, Maria Luisa, who would also become an actress. Her mother, Enrica, used to dress the girls to resemble the American child star, Shirley Temple. The family moved to Rome when she was three. Read more…

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Francesco Baracca – flying ace

Italy’s most successful First World War fighter pilot

Italy’s top fighter pilot of the First World War, Francesco Baracca, died in action on this day in 1918. He had been flying a strafing mission against Austro-Hungarian ground troops in support of an Italian attack on the Montello Hill, about 17km (11 miles) north of Treviso in the Veneto, on which he was accompanied by a rookie pilot, Tenente Franco Osnago. They split from one another after being hit by ground fire but a few minutes later, Osnago saw a burning plane falling from the sky. Witnesses on the ground saw it too. Osnago flew back to his base but Baracca never returned. Only when the Austro-Hungarian troops were driven back was the wreckage of Baracca’s Spad VII aircraft found in a valley. His body was discovered a few metres away. A monument in his memory was later built on the site. Osnago, fellow pilot Ferruccio Ranza and a journalist recovered his body. It was taken back to his home town of Lugo in the province of Ravenna, where a large funeral was held. It is thought that Barocca was seeking to provide Osnago with cover from above as he swooped on enemy trenches when he was attacked by an Austrian plane. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Pier Angeli: A Fragile Life, by Jane Allen

"In Pier Angeli, a 19-year-old Italian girl, Hollywood has found an actress who eludes the town's traditional classifications and whose unvarnished beauty and instinctive talent have already caused her to be called 'Little Garbo'" - Theodore Strauss in Collier's, April 1952. This work is the first full-length biography of actress Anna Maria Pierangeli, from her early life in Italy to her death at the age of 39. She was discovered by Vittorio De Sica and soon after starred in her first film, Domani e troppo tardi (Tomorrow Is Too Late), which began her meteoric rise to fame in Italy. She arrived in Hollywood in 1950 at the age of 18, and the first thing MGM did was change her name to Pier Angeli and predict great things for its newest actress. Pier Angeli: A Fragile Life covers her seven year career with MGM, her two unhappy marriages to Vic Damone and Armando Trovajoli, her love for her children Perry and Andrew, her brief and stormy relationship with James Dean, her dependent relationships with her mother and such stars as Kirk Douglas, Richard Attenborough and Debbie Reynolds, and the mystery surrounding her death.

Writer and psychologist Jane Allen lives in Bowral, New South Wales, Australia. She had a varied career in the arts, studying at the Chelsea Polytechnic in London and working in galleries in Sydney for many years. She holds a BA and and MPhil (Psychology) from Sydney University.

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