Anna Baldini and Franco Interlenghi in Domenica d'agosto (1950)

Vintage photo. Anna Baldini and Franco Interlenghi in Domenica d'agosto/A Sunday in August (Luciano Emmer, 1950).

Italian actor Franco Interlenghi (1931-2015) was a popular leading man during the 1950s who worked with great film directors like De Sica, Fellini, Antonioni, Bolognini and Rossellini. Although he never gained international stardom, he was just as revered in his country as Marcello Mastroianni.

Franco Interlenghi was born in 1931 in Rome, Italy. At 15 years old, he made his film debut in a classic of the Italian neorealist cinema, Sciuscià/Shoeshine (Vittorio De Sica, 1946). DeSica used nonprofessional actors, and he painted an uncompromising picture of the lives of Italian street children abandoned by their parents at the end of World War II. The film concentrates on two such children, Giuseppe (Rinaldo Smerdoni) and Pasquale (Franco Interlenghi). With no one else to turn to, the boys form a solid friendship, as well as a ‘corporation’ of sorts: they eke out a living shining the boots of American GI’s. Sciuscià was a huge success worldwide, as well as the winner of a special Academy Award. In the following years young Franco appeared in more successful films like the historical epic Fabiola (Alessandro Blasetti, 1949), the neorealist comedy Domenica d'agosto/A Sunday in August (Luciano Emmer, 1950), the comedy classic Don Camillo/The Little World of Don Camillo (Julien Duvivier, 1952), the murder drama Processo alla città/The City Stands Trial (Luigi Zampa, 1952) and the Homer adaptation Ulisse/Ulysses (Mario Camerini, 1954) starring Kirk Douglas and Silvana Mangano.

Franco Interlenghi is probably best remembered for his leading role in Federico Fellini’s beautiful I Vitelloni/Spivs (1953). I Vitelloni follows the lives of five young vitelloni, or layabouts, who while away their listless days in their small seaside village. While the film seems to pay little attention to Moraldo (Interlenghi), he eventually emerges as its key character, plainly serving as Fellini's alter ego. Franco Interlenghi worked that same year with another great maestro, Michelangelo Antonioni, at I Vinti/The Vanquished (1953), a unique triptych film featuring three murders in London, Paris and Rome. Interlenghi also appeared in supporting parts in several Hollywood productions filmed on location in Italy, like Teresa (Fred Zinnemann, 1951) with Pier Angeli, The Barefoot Contessa (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1954) starring Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart, and A Farewell to Arms (Charles Vidor, who replaced John Huston, 1957) with Rock Hudson. He also starred opposite Brigitte Bardot and Jean Gabin in En Cas de malheur/Love is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Among his well known Italian films of the 1950s were also Gli Innamorati/Wild Love (Mauro Bolognini, 1955) with his wife Antonella Lualdi, the comedy Totò, Peppino e i... fuorilegge/Totò, Peppino and the Outlaw (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1956) starring comedians Totò and Peppino de Filippo, the comedy Padri e figli/Like Father, Like Son (Mario Monicelli, 1957), the war drama Il generale della Rovere/General della Rovere (Roberto Rossellini, 1959) and the crime drama La notte brava/Bad Girls Don’t Cry (Mauro Bolognini, 1959), again opposite Antonella Lualdi.

Although Franco Interlenghi would never gain international stardom, he was a popular film actor in his home country. In addition to films, he also appeared in successful theatrical productions. He worked with famous director Luchino Visconti on an adaptation of Death of a salesman. In the 1960s and 1970s he appeared in less films, a.o. the historical drama Viva l'Italia!/Garibaldi (Roberto Rossellini, 1961), the crime film Mise a Sac/Pillaged (Alain Cavalier, 1967), the historical romance Columna/The Column (Mircea Dragan, 1968) and the Western Amore, piombo e furore/China 9, Liberty 37 (Monte Hellmann, 1978) with Fabio Testi and Warren Oates. In the following decades he was seen more regularly in films and also on TV, but his roles were smaller and the films less successful than during the 1950s. He appeared in supporting parts in the crime drama Il Camorrista/The Professor (1986, Giuseppe Tornatore) starring Ben Gazzara, the Moliere adaptation L’avare/The Miser (1990, Tonino Cervi) starring Alberto Sordi, the psychological thriller L’ours en peluche/The Teddybear (Jacques Deray, 1994) with Alain Delon, and the drama Marciando Nel Buio/Marching in the dark (Massimo Spano,1995, about the brutal rape of a young soldier and his attempts to bring the culprit to justice. He also appeared in a sexploitation film by Tinto Brass, Miranda (Tinto Brass, 1985). Recent films were the sweeping crime drama Romanzo Criminale/Crime Novel (Michele Placido, 2005) starring Kim Rossi Stuart, and the hit comedy sequel Notte prima degli esami – Oggi/The Night Before the Exams - Today (Fausto Brizzi, 2007). Franco Interlenghi was married to actress Antonella Lualdi. Their daughter, Antonellina Interlenghi, and their granddaughter, Virginia Sanjust Di Teulada, are also actors. Interlenghi was 83.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Taken on: August 18, 2024

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