FLORENCE, ITALY – The Tuscan actor and director Giorgio Albertazzi died Saturday May 28, 2016 in his native land. He was 92. He is famous especially for playing, well into old age, Shakespeare’s masterpieces and the emperor’s role based on Memories of Hadrian.
On stage, often in Shakespeare’s plays, Albertazzi worked with some of Italy’s most celebrated directors, including Luchino Visconti, for whom he debuted in 1949, and Franco Zeffirelli.
In life he has been one of the most well-known artists for playing Shakespeare; he died in the year which recalls the 400th anniversary of the death of the English playwright.
Giorgio Albertazzi was born in Fiesole (a little town in the hills just outside Florence) on the hills 20 August 1923. He spent his last days in the country house of Roccastrada, near Grosseto, in the south of Tuscany.
When he was young Albertazzi joined the Italian Social Republic and reached the rank of lieutenant. After their defeat, he spent two years in prison for collaborating. After the amnesty by Palmiro Togliatti he changed from studying architecture to acting.
In the theater Albertazzi debuted in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, and played in the following decades in a number of classics, many of them for television.
From the early 1950s he was also seen on the big screen and played in more than 50 films. In 2007 he married his long-standing partner Pia de Tolomei. In 1988 he wrote his memoirs.
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