RIP Lea Massari

 

Italian theater, film and TV actress Lea Massari died in Rome on June 23^rd. She was 91. Born Anna Maria Massata in on June 30, 1933, in Rome, she grew up between Rome, Switzerland, and France. She initially enrolled in an architecture school, but her interest in film soon took precedence. She chose the name Lea after the sudden death of her fiancé Leo, who was killed in a car accident just days before their wedding — a personal loss that remained private, but which left a lasting mark on the identity she would construct as an actress. She made her screen debut in 1954 with “Proibito”, directed by Mario Monicelli. He noticed her and cast her as Agnese, a rebellious young woman in a remote Sardinian village. From that moment on, Massari’s career followed a lateral path through Italian cinema — never quite absorbed into the mainstream, often selected precisely for the qualities that set her apart from dominant models of femininity. While she remained marginal in Italy compared to more conventional female stars, it was France that recognized her value with greater consistency. She worked with Claude Sautet, Louis Malle, René Clément, and Pierre Granier-Deferre. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, she moved between cinema and television. On stage, she played Rosetta in the first theatrical production of Rugantino, alongside Nino Manfredi. Lea starred in only one Spaghetti western along with American Craig Hill in 1968’s “I Want Him Dead” as Aloma