ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 20, 1996 TAG: 9612200017
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PARIS
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: Associated Press
HE BROUGHT HIS special touches of humor, seductiveness, modesty and vulnerability to movies for 50 years and acted in several classics.
Marcello Mastroianni, who took the image of the sexy Italian lover and refined it with touches of humility, humor and wisdom in classic movies such as ``La Dolce Vita,'' died Thursday at his Paris home. He was 72.
The actor, who made more than 120 films in a 50-year career and was noted for his long partnerships with director Federico Fellini and actress Sophia Loren, died of pancreatic cancer.
Whether as a cuckold Sicilian baron in ``Divorce Italian Style'' (1961) or a womanizing journalist in ``La Dolce Vita'' (1960), Mastroianni managed to be funny, seductive, modest and vulnerable all at once.
In Rome, the city began its farewell to Mastroianni at sunset Thursday, shutting off the water in the Trevi fountain - site of a famous scene in Fellini's ``La Dolce Vita'' where a steamy Anita Ekberg lured the Italian actor into the fountain's cool waters.
Rome Mayor Francesco Rutelli and Mastroianni's widow, Flora, held hands and watched, teary-eyed, as black drapes were unfurled over the side of the white fountain.
A crowd of 500 listened silently while a musician played the score of ``81/2,'' a celebrated 1963 film starring Mastroianni.
Mastroianni won two best-actor awards at Cannes and was nominated for best-actor Oscars for ``Divorce, Italian Style,'' ``A Special Day'' and ``Dark Eyes,'' but he was uncomfortable with the image of sex symbol. ``I am not a sex addict,'' he once said.
Said Ekberg: ``Marcello was a spontaneous actor. He acted the way he spoke every day.''
Mastroianni and Loren made 11 films together, among them ``Marriage Italian Style'' (1964), ``Sunflowers'' (1969), ``The Priest's Wife'' (1970), and ``A Special Day'' (1977). They came to symbolize the common Italian couple - married or not.
The two reunited in Robert Altman's 1994 satirical comedy on the fashion industry, ``Ready to Wear.'' In the film, Loren repeats the seductive strip scene she first performed for Mastroianni in ``Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow'' (1963).
Only this time, an older Mastroianni falls asleep.
``He had this huge quality about him of taking seriously what he was doing, without taking himself seriously,'' said director Roger Vadim. ``His humor and tenderness about himself is one of the best and rarest qualities of geniuses.''
Mastroianni also was uncomfortable with those who took the actor's craft too seriously.
``I'm always rather annoyed when people say extraordinary things about actors,'' he said at the Cannes Film Festival in May. ``We just do a job.''
Off screen, Mastroianni had a well-documented relationship with French actress Catherine Deneuve, for whom he left his wife in 1972. The two had a daughter, Chiara, now 24 and an actress. They separated after a few years.
Deneuve and Chiara were at Mastroianni's bedside when he died early Thursday. They emerged from his apartment building at midday, both shaken and hidden behind dark sunglasses, to a horde of clicking cameras.
Mastroianni's ``Three Lives and Only One Death,'' in which he plays opposite Chiara, recently was released in the United States.
Born Sept. 28, 1924, in a small town near Rome, Mastroianni performed as a child on the stage at his parish church. His father, a carpenter, forced him to abandon his formal schooling at 14 and go to work.
In the late 1930s, he held odd jobs in Rome, occasionally getting small parts in movies. During World War II, while he was working as a draftsman, German soldiers carted him to a labor camp in northern Italy.
Mastroianni escaped and lived in wartime poverty in Venice until 1945. After the war, he returned to Rome, where he began studying architecture and worked as a clerk with a British film-distribution company during the day. He practiced acting in the evening with a group of university students.
His first lead film role was in an Italian production of Victor Hugo's ``Les Miserables'' in 1947. With ``Three Girls From Rome'' (1952), he became known abroad.
Despite his popularity among American moviegoers, Mastroianni's experience with U.S. directors was limited to ``Ready to Wear'' and Peggy Rejsky's ``Used People'' (1991).
He also appeared in a 1994 Argentine film released in the United States, ``I Don't Want To Talk About It,'' directed by Maria Luis Bemberg.
He said American filmmakers took themselves too seriously.
``I don't understand why these Americans have to suffer so much to identify with their characters,'' he said. ``Me, I just get up there and act.''
He won best-actor awards at Cannes for his 1970 role in ``The Pizza Triangle'' and in 1987 for his performance in the Soviet film ``Dark Eyes.''
He married actress Flora Carabella in 1950. They have a daughter, Barbara, who also was at his bedside Thursday.
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