Pier Angeli

Before she was 20 Pier Angeli (1932-1971) had starred with Vittorio de Sica in two Italian box office hits and was discovered by Hollywood. There she would win a Golden Globe, have an affair with James Dean, and there she would die before she was 40.


French postcard, no. 108.


Dutch postcard by DRC, no. F 103. Photo: MGM.


Dutch postcard. Photo: MGM.


Dutch postcard.


French postcard by Edition du Globe (E.D.U.G.), no. 93.

A Light Touch of Innocence

Anna Maria Pierangeli was born in 1932, in Cagliari on the island of Sardinia. Her twin sister is the actress Marisa Pavan.

When she was only 16 she made her film debut in an uncredited part in a short Italian film. The following year she played with Vittorio de Sica in Domani è troppo tardi/Tomorrow Is Too Late (Léonide Moguy, 1950).

At AllMovie, Hal Erickson writes: "Domani e Troppo Tardi is the first of two Leonide Moguy films dealing with the travails of post-war Italian life; the second was Domani e un altro Giorno. The story concerns the efforts to provide a proper sex education for youngsters. Progressive schoolteachers Landi (Vittorio De Sica) and Anna (Lois Maxwell) have a profound influence on two of their young students, Mirella (Anna Maria Pierangeli) and Franco (Gino Leuri). The two kids are enamored of one another, and decide to experiment with some of the knowledge they've gleaned in the classroom... with devastating results."

Soon Anna Maria Pierangeli would be discovered by Hollywood, and she changed her professional name in Pier Angeli. MGM launched her in Teresa (Fred Zinnemann, 1951). Enthusiastic reviews for her eloquent and understated performance compared her to Greta Garbo. She received an Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe.

With Stewart Granger she played in The Light Touch (Richard Brooks, 1952). She indeed brought a light touch of innocence to the film, but her next films, like the musical The Story of Three Loves (Vincente Minnelli, Gottfried Reinhardt, 1953), and Flame and the Flesh (Richard Brooks, 1954) with Lana Turner, were respectable but unexciting.


Italian postcard. Photo: M.G.M. Publicity still for Domani è troppo tardi/Tomorrow Is Too Late (Léonide Moguy, 1950) with Gino Leurini.


Belgian postcard, offered by RI RI Demaret, no. 1051. Photo: MGM. Publicity still for Teresa (Fred Zinnemann, 1951) with John Ericson.


With James Dean. German postcard by Kolibri-Verlag, Minden/Westf., no. 2346. Photo: Keystone.


British postcard in the Film Star Autograph Portrait Series by L.D. Ltd., London, no. 133. Photo: M.G.M. Publicity still for Sombrero (Norman Foster, 1953).


French postcard by Editions P.I., Paris, no. 520, offered by Les Carbones Korès 'Carboplane'. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1954.


French postcard by Editions du Globe, no. 549. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.


Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. 1182. Photo: MGM.

The Angry Silence

Pier Angeli had a relationship with James Dean but in 1954, under pressure from her domineering mother, she married Catholic singer Vic Damone. The marriage lasted only four years and was followed by highly publicized court battles for the custody of their one son, Perry Farinola.

MGM discovered another European ingénue, Leslie Caron, and they loaned Pier out to other studios. At Warner Bros., she made The Silver Chalice (Victor Saville, 1954) which was only remarkable for the debut of Paul Newman.

For Paramount, she should have had the role of Anna Magnani's daughter in The Rose Tattoo (Daniel Mann, 1955), but motherhood interfered. The role went to her twin sister, Marisa Pavan, who was nominated for an Oscar for it.

Pier returned to her old form in the biography of boxer Rocky Graziano, Somebody Up There Likes Me (Robert Wise, 1956) as Paul Newman's long-suffering wife.

During the 1960s she worked in Europe. She did a strong performance in the kitchen sink drama The Angry Silence (Guy Green, 1960) opposite Richard Attenborough, but few of her other films during that period were notable.

She was reunited with Stewart Granger for the sword and sandal epic Sodom and Gomorrah (Robert Aldrich, 1962) and she played a brief role in Battle of the Bulge (Ken Annakin, 1965) starring Henry Fonda .

Her final appearance was in the low-budget Sci-Fi opus Octaman (Harry Essex, 1971) opposite Kerwin Mathews.

She married a second time to composer Armando Trovaioli in 1962. They had a son, Andrew, but the couple divorced in 1969.

It seemed as if her acting career might revive when she was picked to play a role in The Godfather, (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972) but she died soon before filming.

On 10 September 1971 Pier Angeli was found dead of an accidental barbiturate overdose in her house in Beverly Hills. She was only 39 years old.


Italian postcard by Turismofoto, no. 18.


German postcard by Kunst und Bild, Berlin, no. A 370. Photo: M.G.M.


Dutch postcard. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).


Indonesian postcard.


French postcard. Photo: MGM.


Dutch postcard. Photo: M.G.M. Publicity still for The Vintage (Jeffrey Hayden, 1957)


French postcard by E.D.U.G., no. 57.


Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 57.


German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/48.


Scene from Domani è troppo tardi/Tomorrow Is Too Late (1950). Source: coralieshy (YouTube).

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Denny Jackson (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Marisa Pavan

Italian born actress Marisa Pavan (1932) first became famous as the twin sister to film star Pier Angeli  before achieving film stardom on her own. She became known for her gentle, understated roles. Pavan won the Golden Globe and was Oscar-nominated for her supporting turn in The Rose Tattoo (1955).


French postcard by Editions du Globe (E.D.U.G.), no. 532. Photo: International Press / Paramount.

Twin Sister
Marisa Pavan was born Marisa Pierangeli in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy, in 1932. Her twin sister was Anna Maria Pierangeli, who later became film star Pier Angeli. Marisa studied briefly at Torquado Tasso college and made her first film appearance in an Italian satire of the Cold War, Ho Scelto L'Amore/I Chose Love (1952, Mario Zampi), before moving with her family to the United States. She made her American debut in 20th Century Fox's 1952 remake of the 1926 classic of What Price Glory? (1952, John Ford) playing a sweet village girl. She then impressed as a blind witness to a murder in Down Three Dark Streets (1953, Arnold Laven) opposite Broderick Crawford. Her breakthrough came in the film The Rose Tattoo (1955, Daniel Mann) as Anna Magnani's teen-age daughter. Her role was first assigned to her twin, who at the time was unable to play the part. When Magnani won the Oscar for Best Actress, Pavan accepted on her behalf as Magnani was not present at the awards ceremony. Pavan was nominated for best supporting actress, losing to Jo Van Fleet (for East of Eden). Both Magnani and Pavan won Golden Globe awards that year.


Pier Angeli. Dutch postcard by Takken, Utrecht, no. 1182. Photo: MGM.

Jean-Pierre Aumont
Marisa Pavan co-starred in several more Hollywood films, usually in gentle roles. She played the Native American childhood sweetheart of Alan Ladd in Drum Beat (1954, Delmer Daves). Pavan appeared as the scheming Catherine de Medici in the opulent costume drama Diane (1955, David Miller) starring Lana Turner, and she had an illegitimate child with Gregory Peck in The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit (1956, Nunnally Johnson). In 1956, she married, later divorced, and then again remarried the French actor Jean-Pierre Aumont. In the following years she appeared opposite Tony Curtis in the film-noir The Midnight Story (1957, Joseph Pevney) as leading lady to Robert Stack in the sea-faring historical epic John Paul Jones (1959, John Farrow), and as Abishag in the Biblical film adaptation Solomon and Sheba (1959, King Vidor). Her Hollywood days ended with the dawn of the 1960’s. With her husband, she sang in a supper club act that toured the United States, Canada and Mexico. She has been seen in several American TV productions, including The Diary of Anne Frank (1967, Alex Segal) with Max von Sydow, Cutter's Trail (1970, Vincent McEveety) with John Saxon, The Moneychangers (1976, Boris Sagal) starring Kirk Douglas, and The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald (1977, Gordon Davidson, David Greene).


Dutch postcard, no. 2037.


Hit Record
Marisa Pavan returned to Europe and appeared in the French films L’Evenement Le Plus Important Depuis Que L’homme A Marche Sur La Lune/A Slightly Pregnant Man (1973, Jacques Demy) starring Marcello Mastroianni, and the romance Antoine et Sebastien/Antoine & Sebastien (1974, Jean-Marie Perier) with Jacques Dutronc. She had a hit record in 1974 with a French-language version of Burt Bacharach's Green Grass Starts to Grow. Later she guest-starred in episodes of popular American tv-series like The Rockford Files (1979), Hawaii Five-O (1977), McMillan & Wife (1977) and Ryan's Hope (1985). In 1983 she was interviewed for Stelle Emigranti/Wandering Stars (1983, Francesco Bortolini, Claudio Masenza), a revealing documentary about eight Italian actresses (including Gina Lollobrigida, Claudia Cardinale and Virna Lisi) who attained worldwide fame through films they made in Hollywood. Most of the eight agree that performers are treated better in Hollywood than in Italy, and that American efficiency and organization impressed them - but that in Italy, they had more challenging roles than was allowed in the USA. Marisa Pavan now lives in Paris, Jean-Pierre Aumont has died in 2001. The pair appeared for the last time together in the French TV-film Johnny Monroe (1987, Renaud Saint-Pierre). They had two sons, Jean-Claude and Patrick. Marisa Pavan is also the stepmother of actress Tina Aumont.

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