A legendary actor who influenced cinema across the globe, Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni was born in 1924 in Fontana Liri, a mountainous area of Lazio, about an hour from Rome. Mastroianni spent his childhood near the Eternal City experimenting with acting in stage roles at his local church. During his teenage years, he took odd jobs in Rome, including bit parts in movies. Then during World War II, he was forced by German soldiers to work at a labor camp in northern Italy. He escaped, taking refuge in Venice until 1945. During the post-war period when war-torn Italy was recovering from the devastation it had just endured, Mastroianni returned to Rome and landed a job as a clerk with a British film company. During off-hours, he would get together with local actors to hone his craft. Then in 1947, he landed his first significant acting role in Riccardo Freda’s adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel, “Les Miserables.” Watch this video that I recently shot on the Isola Liri, close to
100+ YEARS OF THE GREAT ITALIAN MOVIEMAKERS