Calamai, Clara


Bios, Movies, Photo galleries
Post Reply
User avatar
Emiliano
Admin
Posts: 7693
Joined: 08.26.18
Location: Italy
Name: Emiliano
Contact:

Calamai, Clara

Post by Emiliano » 04/03/2022, 11:09

Calamai Carla 1943.jpg
Clara Calamai in Cineguida 1943
Clara Calamai was one of the best known and most loved Italian film actresses of the forties.

She was born on September 7, 1915 in Prato. Her father was a stationmaster. When sixteen she is the victim of a tragic event that will mark her life: she falls in love with a boy six years older than her, belonging to one of the most important families in the city. Their parents are against her relationship, and in a desperation she decides to point her father's gun at her chest and pull her trigger. Twice, because at her first one her revolver misfires. She stays for a few days between her life and death, but then she manages to recover.

Her film debut is shrouded in mystery: some sources say that a photograph of her, passed from hand to hand, has come into the hands of the director Aldo Vergani, others say that who discover her talent was the production manager Eugenio Fontana; however, the fact remains that she is asked to go to Rome for an audition. Strangely supported in this choice by her parents, she graduated at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome and appeared with a small part in the film Pietro Micca (1938) by Aldo Vergano, adopting, only on this occasion, the pseudonym of Clara Mais.

After a few films of not so great appeal, in 1941 she participated in the film that gave her international fame, not only thanks to an excellent interpretation, but also for a fact that the history of cinema catalogs it as the first movie in which appears a naked breasts: La cena delle beffe by Alessandro Blasetti. Accompanied by the sensational uproar and controversy, the actress immediately becomes the object of desire of millions of Italians.

Driven by the great success, she throws herself body and soul into the film of what she considers to be the most important of her life: Ossessione (1943) by Luchino Visconti. The film is a huge success, even internationally, but nevertheless the actress comes out in a serious existential crisis, cause the director, in spite of the actress's feelings, feels more attracted by the male lead Massimo Girotti, rather than her.

In the postwar period her brilliant interpretation in the film L'adultera (1946) by Duilio Coletti give her a prize for the best female interpretation. Following the good movies Romanticismo (1950) by Clemente Fracassi and Carne inquieta (1952) by Silvestro Prestifilippo. In the 1950s she married the explorer Leonardo Bonzi and began to thin out her appearances on the screen, thus spending a long period in the shadow, only to reappear rarely in realative small, but intense parts, until the 1975 with Profondo rosso by Dario Argento, which also represents the last film of her long career. Whereupon, like many divas of the fascist twenty years, as Isa Miranda, Doris Duranti and Elsa Merlini, she became a forgotten character.

Retired to private life in the last thirty years of her life, she passed away on September 21, 1998 in Rimini, in the locality of Nido dell'Aquila, where she had been residing for some time.[1]

Additional note[2]
  • Instruction: Teacher-training high school diploma.
  • Foreign languages: French.
Filmography[2]

  • Pietro Micca (1938)
  • Le sorprese del vagone letto
  • Io, suo padre (1939)
  • Il fornaretto di Venezia (1939)
  • Manovre d'amore (1940)
  • La cena delle beffe (1942)
  • La guardia del corpo (1942)
  • Le vie del cuore (1942)
  • Regina di Navarra (1942)
  • Addio, amore! (1943)
  • Ossessione (1943)
  • Sorelle Materassi (1944)
  • L'adultera (1946)
  • Romanticismo (1950)
  • Carne inquieta (1952)
  • Le streghe (1967) .... Former actress
  • Profondo rosso (1975) .... Carlo's mother
Notes and sources
1. This mini-biography is the result of editor's personal research as the summary of many sources.
2. Dante Lazzaro. Cineguida 1943.

Post Reply