Giancarlo Giannini

Giancarlo Giannini

Sponsored Links:

Birth name: Giancarlo Giannini
Date of birth: 1 August 1942
Place of birth: La Spezia, Italy
Nickname: Giancarlo
Height: 5′ 8½” (1.74 m)
Spouse: Livia Giampalmo (1967 – 1975) (divorced) 4 children

Famous Quote: “Anyone can go to the tobacconist to buy cigarettes while it will become impossible to enjoy a film in peace. about Italian health minister proposing legislation that would require a health warning to be posted on screen whenever an actor or actress lights a cigarette.”

Contact Address and Autograph: Addresses and fan mail information

Giancarlo Giannini
Studio Squillante Srl.
Via della Giuliana 101
00195 Roma, Italy 

Biography: Giancarlo Giannini (born August 1, 1942) is an Oscar-nominated Italian actor and dubber. Giancarlo Giannini is an Oscar-nominated Italian actor, director and multilingual dubber who made international reputation for his leading roles in Italian films as well as for his mastery of numerous dialects. Charming, melancholic star of the 1970s who appeared in a string of Lina Wertmuller films, including “Love and Anarchy” (1973), “Swept Away” (1974), and “Seven Beauties” (1975), the classically handsome Giancarlo Giannini has become an international star and in recent years has frequently appeared in US film and TV projects. He has been at his best portraying Everymen who are imperfect, but one roots for them as they buck the system that often barely knows he exists.

Giannini was born La Spezia, Liguria, Italy. He studied at the Accademia Nazionale in Rome, and made his film debut in a small part in Fango sulla metropoli in 1965. He appeared in supporting roles in Anzio and The Secret of Santa Vittoria, and starred in the original version of Swept Away. In 1971, he appeared in …e le stelle stanno a guardare, a television adaptation of A. J. Cronin’s novel, The Stars Look Down. For ten years young Giannini lived and studied in Naples, Italy, earning his degree in electronics. At the age of 18 he enrolled in the Academy of Dramatic Art D’Amico in Rome, making his stage acting debut there. His stage credits included performances in contemporary Italian plays, as well, as in Italian productions of Shakespeare’s plays ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘Midsummer’s Night Dream’. 

In 1965, Giannini made his debut on television starring as David Copperfield in TV mini-series made by RAI, the Italian National TV company. He made his big screen debut in Libido (1965) a Freudian psychological thriller. Since 1966, Giannini has been in a successful life-long collaboration with the legendary Italian woman-director Lina Wertmüller who made several award-winning films with Giannini as a male lead. He appears as peasant Tonino who prepares to assassinate dictator Mussolini in Film d’amore e d’anarchia, ovvero ‘stamattina alle 10 in via dei Fiori nella nota casa di tolleranza…’ (1973), as a sailor in ironic comedy Travolti da un insolito destino nell’azzurro mare d’agosto (1974), and as a survivor of a concentration camp in the Oscar-nominated Pasqualino Settebellezze (1975). Giannini stars as a Jewish musician who is arrested by the Nazis in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s masterpiece Lili Marleen (1981). 

Giannini produced and starred in Wertmuller’s “Seven Beauties” (1975), which followed a small-time Casanova through World War II and survival in a concentration camp. Giannini was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his work assuring him international stardom. He had appeared in a US film as an Italian villager helping to hide wine from the Nazis in “The Secret of Santa Vittoria” (1969), a vehicle for Anthony Quinn. In 1984, he starred in “American Dreamer”, as a man who becomes caught up in JoBeth Williams’ misguided sense of adventure. “Saving Grace” (1986) cast Giannini as the provider of wisdom for pope-in-disguise Tom Conti. His TV work has been infrequent. Giannini was leading man to Joan Collins in the miniseries “Sins” (1986) and played Laban, the scheming father-in-law of “Jacob” in the 1994 TNT version of the biblical story. 

In 1976, he starred in Seven Beauties, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, which is unusual in that his performance was given entirely in Italian. He dubbed Jack Nicholson’s voice in the Italian release of both The Shining and Batman; and is the official Italian dubber of Al Pacino. Giannini was the father in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Life With Zoe” segment of “New York Stories” (1989) and somehow got himself entangled with John Candy and James Belushi in the forgettable “Once Upon a Crime” (1992). He was the winemaker father-in-law of Keanu Reeves in “A Walk in the Clouds” (1995). 

In addition to producing “Seven Beauties”, Giannini has also worked in that capacity on “Buone notize/Good News” (1979) and directed two features “I Capitoni” (1984) and “Ternosecco” (1987). He also co-wrote and starred in the latter, playing a man who married the daughter of the local lottery merchant and gets involved in the local criminal world. His fluency in English has brought him a number of featured roles in Hollywood productions, most notably as Inspector Pazzi in Hannibal. He has also appeared in A Walk in the Clouds and Man on Fire.

Giannini’s best-known starring roles have been in films directed by Lina Wertmuller. In addition to Swept Away and Seven Beauties, he also appeared in The Seduction of Mimi, Love and Anarchy, A Night Full of Rain, and Francesca e Nunziata. After dubbing Jack Nicholson’s voice in the Italian version of The Shining (1980), he received a telegram of congratulations from Stanley Kubrick.

His great passion is inventing. Among other things, he invented the moving, playing jacket Robin Williams was wearing in Toys (1992). Two sons: Lorenzo (1967) and actor Adriano Giannini (1971). Has played a police officer for both director Ridley Scott Hannibal (2001) and his brother Tony Scott Man on Fire (2004). Italian dubbing voice of Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Michael Douglas, Gérard Depardieu, Dustin Hoffman and ‘Ryan O’Neal’. Has two children with his second wife.

He played the role of the protective father, Alberto Aragón, in A Walk in the Clouds in 1995. He played the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV in the 2000 Dune miniseries. In 2002, he starred in the horror film Darkness. Giannini also made a reputation for dubbing numerous international stars in films released on the Italian market, such as Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Michael Douglas, Dustin Hoffman, Gérard Depardieu and Ian McKellen to name just a few. 

He received a compliment from Stanley Kubrick for his dubbing of Jack Nicholson in the Italian version of ‘The Shining’. Giannini’s fluency in English and his mastery of dialects has brought him a number of supporting roles in Hollywood productions, such as A Walk in the Clouds (1995), Hannibal (2001), The Dark (2002), and Man on Fire (2004), among many other. He appears as Rene Mathis in the 21st James Bond film Casino Royale (2006), and reprises the role in the sequel, Quantum of Solace (2008).

Related People: