Comedy Classic Mariangela Melato

One of Italy’s most adored comedy actresses, she is best known for her doomed love affairs in Lina Wertmüller’s 1970s films on social class and politics.

Mariangela Melato was born in Milan in 1941 to a Milanese mother and a German father who emigrated to Italy from Nazi Germany. When she was a teenager, she studied acting under Esperia Sperani, a fellow Milanese who rose to fame during the silent film era.

Melato began her acting career with small parts in television and film, but her breakout role came in Wertmüller’s 1972 “The Seduction of Mimi.” The story of a Sicilian worker cursed with bad timing, Mimi (Giancarlo Giannini) is forced to relocate to Torino. When he sees Fiorella (Melato) selling sweaters for a street vendor, it’s love at first sight. Before long, Fiorella becomes Mimi’s vivacious and talkative mistress and gives birth to their son.

Meanwhile, Mimi finds trouble at every turn and is transferred back to Sicily, where his wife is waiting for him along with a different set of problems. He gets into trouble and ends up serving time for a murder he didn’t commit. Upon his release, he is met with three women and three children, all fighting over him, forcing him to choose between them.

At first, producers were concerned about casting Giannini and Melato in the lead roles because they were relatively unknown to Italian audiences. But the two had such strong chemistry, Wertmüller also cast them in her 1973 follow-up.

Described as an anti-Fascist drama, “Love and Anarchy” is the story of a freckle-faced farmer named Tunin (Giannini) who plans to assassinate Benito Mussolini to avenge the death of his friend, who himself was killed while attempting to murder the dictator. On his way to commit the deed, he makes a pit stop at a notorious Roman brothel. There, he meets the anarchist prostitute Salomè (Melato). She is all too happy to assist him as she seeks to avenge the murder of her former boyfriend, who was beaten to death by Mussolini’s police. They go to the Roman countryside with another prostitute to strategize. Tunin and Salomè fall in love, and on the day they plan to carry out the assassination, the two women decide not to wake him in an attempt to protect him. When he realizes he overslept, he flies into a rage, which Mussolini’s police overhear and then take him into custody.

“Swept Away” from 1974 was the most successful of the three Wertmüller films in which the two co-starred. In it, Melato played Raffaella, a pretentious upper-class Milanese woman yachting with her friends, and Giannini played Gennarino, a Sicilian crew worker on the yacht. Fueled by the differences in their political beliefs, the two butt heads. When a raft carrying the two away from the yacht breaks down and they’re stranded on a remote island, turmoil turns to love, but things change after they are rescued and brought back to reality.

In Ruiz’s 2015 documentary, “Lina Wertmüller: Behind the White Glasses,”

Melato talks about her special bond with Wertmüller. “I undeniably owe a lot to Lina for having insisted on using me in a time when nobody knew who I was, and even after meeting me, nobody cared to work with me,” she said. “She was very stubborn but good to us and believed in our potential, mine and Giancarlo Giannini’s when no director wanted us. And I owe her for giving me female roles different from those in other Italian movies.”

In 1976, Melato won a Golden Globe for her role opposite Marcello Mastroianni in Elio Petri’s political thriller “Todo modo,” and in the early 1980s, she appeared in two American films, “Flash Gordon” and “So Fine.” She continued work in Italian cinema throughout the ’80s, teaming up again with Wertmüller in the 1986 comedy “Summer Night With Greek Profile, Almond Eyes and Scent of Basil.” In the ’90s, she worked predominantly in television until her death in 2013 at the age of 71 from pancreatic cancer.

Melato remains a beloved personality in Italy and an inspiration to aspiring actresses. Most of the aforementioned films are available online. Click on the titles for direct links.

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