European Film Star Postcards: Carla Gravina

06 September 2021

Carla Gravina

Carla Gravina (1941) is an Italian film, stage, and television actress and politician. She started her film career at the age of 15 and worked with such directors as Luigi Comencini, Duccio Tessari, and Ettore Scola. For ten years, she was the partner of Gian Maria Volonté with whom she often acted together.

Italian postcard by Bromofoto, Milano, no. 1489. Photo: Cineriz / Rizzoli.

Sharing a strong political commitment

Carla Gravina was born in Gemona del Friuli, Italy, in 1941. She was the daughter of an Army colonel from Montagano, Molise. Gravina made her film debut at the age of 15, playing the girlfriend of the title character (Jacqueline Sassard) in the comedy Guendalina (Alberto Lattuada, 1957). Already in her second film, Amore e chiacchiere/Love and Chatter (Alessandro Blasetti, 1957, released 1958), Gravina had the female lead opposite Vittorio De Sica and Gino Cervi.

Memorable was her part, alongside Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio Gassman, Totò, and Claudia Cardinale in the comedy I soliti ignoti/Big Deal on Madonna Street (Mario Monicelli, 1958), one of the great successes of the Italian film year 1958 and chosen as one of the '100 films italiani da salvare' (100 Italian films to be saved).

Immediately after, she had one of the female leads in the romantic drama Primo amore/First Love (Mario Camerini, 1959). Then she was the daughter of Renato Rascel and the love interest of Renato Salvatori in the comedy Policarpo, ufficiale di scrittura/Policarpo (1959).In 1958, Gravina also made her debut on the small screen in the mini-series Padri e figli, after Turgenev's 'Fathers and Sons'. In 1959, she became an assistant in the television music programme Il Musichiere.

At the beginning of the 1960s, Carla Gravina discovered the theatre. In 1960, she performed Juliet at the Shakespeare Festival in Verona. There she met Gian Maria Volonté (1933-1994), who was her partner for a decade and with whom she shared a strong political commitment. She had several busy theatre years. Gravina acted in a dozen films in the 1960s. In 1960, she appeared in two war films: she had a minor part in Tutti a casa/Everybody Go Home by Luigi Comencini, a drama that starts on the day that Italy lays down its arms against the Allies, and which was one of the successes of the Italian film year 1960.

In the Italian-American co-production Jovanka e le altre/Five Branded Women (Martin Ritt, 1960), Gravina played one of the five Yugoslavian village women who are shaved bald by the partisans on the accusation of having relations with the Nazis. The other four were Silvana Mangano, Jeanne Moreau, Vera Miles, and Barbara Bel Geddes. After two more films, Gravina stayed away from the big screen for quite some time.

Italian postcard by B.F.F. Edit. (Casa Editr. Ballerini & Fratini, Firenze), no. 3777. Photo: Titanus. Collection: Marlene Pilaete.

Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 816.

A woman possessed by the devil who seduces men and then kills them

Towards the end of the sixties, Carla Gravina appeared on the big screen again, in a more mature role. She collaborated with Gian Maria Volonté in I sette fratelli Cervi/The Seven Cervi Brothers (Gianni Puccini, 1968), a resistance drama based on true facts about seven brother partisans who were executed together. The Gravina-Volonté couple also acted together in the Spaghetti Western Quien sabe?/A Bullet for the General (Damiano Damiani, 1966) and in the crime film Banditi a Milano/Bandits in Milan (Carlo Lizzani, 1968). They were also part of the cast of the historical drama La monaca di Monza/The Lady of Monza (Eriprando Visconti, 1969), a box-office success in Italy, based on a real religious scandal.

In the 1970s, she was active until halfway through the decade. Her presence in four French films in which she acted alongside established French actors such as Jean-Louis Trintignant (Sans mobile apparent/Without Apparent Motive, 1971), Jean-Paul Belmondo (L'Héritier/The Inheritor, 1972), Alain Delon (Comme un boomerang, 1976), Jean Rochefort (L'Héritier and Salut l'artiste, 1973) and Charles Denner (L'Héritier and Toute une vie/And Now My Love, 1974) was remarkable, while she also acted opposite Alain Delon in Duccio Tessari's Tony Arzenta/Big Guns (1973).

In Italy, Gravina made two very notable films: Alfredo, Alfredo (1972) was a very successful comedy by Pietro Germi, the specialist in moral comedy. The film was conceived with the David di Donatello Award for Best Film. Gravina embodied the more compliant woman for whom Dustin Hoffman wanted to leave his bossy wife (Stefania Sandrelli) at a time when divorce was very difficult in Italy. In the horror film L'anticristo/The Antichrist (Alberto De Martino, 1974), she played a woman possessed by the devil who seduces men and then kills them. In the eighties and nineties, Gravina played in no more than five films.

In 1980, Ettore Scola appealed to her talent for La terrazza, a long-talking film in which she, as a feminist wife, outwits her husband, a journalist (Marcello Mastroianni, her film partner for the third time), and finally leaves him. At the Cannes Film Festival, she was honoured for her acting. In 1993, Gravina concluded her film career with the drama Il lungo silenzio/The Long Silence (Margarethe von Trotta, 1993). Her last film role was coined with two important awards and several nominations. Around that time, Gravina, who had had a fruitful television career, also stopped her television work. Her last TV part was in Come quando fuori piove (1998).

Towards the end of the 20th century, Gravina, who had had a rich career on stage with plays by e.g. Goldoni and Shakespeare, also withdrew from the world of theatre. Carla Gravina was a candidate for the Italian Communist Party in the 1979 general election in Milan. She was not elected, but she succeeded Luigi Longo in the Chamber of Deputies from 1980 to 1983, when he died. Carla Gravina was for a decade coupled with the actor Gian Maria Volonté, then married to Tizia Mischi. Together they had a daughter, Giovanna (1961), who took the name of her mother. Her birth caused a scandal at the time.