Massimo Girotti

Manly, chiseled, exceedingly handsome, very agile 'Massimo Girotti' (qv) was an engineering student and polo/swimming star before entering films in 1939. He began auspiciously in serious leads, most notably 'Roberto Rossellini' (qv)'s _Desire (1946)_ (qv), 'Luchino Visconti' (qv)'s _Obsession (1943)_ (qv) and 'Vittorio De Sica' (qv)'s _La porta del cielo (1945)_ (qv), while his physical stature and all-round athletism were put to good use in actioneers such as _Spartacus the Gladiator (1953)_ (qv) in which he played the pre-Kirk Douglas slave-turned-leader role of Spartacus. By the 60s, however, Girotti was reduced to support roles in swashbuckling adventure and badly-dubbed sand-and-spear spectacles, appearing only occasionally in well-mounted films of quality, such as 'Pier Paolo Pasolini' (qv)'s _Teorema (1968)_ (qv), 'Bernardo Bertolucci' (qv)'s _Last Tango in Paris (1972)_ (qv) and Visconti's _L'Innocente (1976)_ (qv). He died only a few weeks before the release of his last film, 'Ferzan Ozpetek' (qv)'s _Facing Windows (2003)_ (qv).::[email protected]