Will The Real Italian American Actor Please
Stand Up?
Italalians R Us
by Cookie
Curci
Peter Falk, the
veteran actor who portrays TV's
cunning inspector Colombo, does such an excellent job at imitating the Italian
American sleuth that most TV viewers believe Peter Falk to be of Italian
descent. In reality, Falk is Russian and Polish, with a mix of Hungarian and
Czech further back in his ancestry. So, contrary to Falk's
public image, he is not Italian American but a mixture of very hardy Eastern
European stock.
On the other
hand, there are those actors, who, in real life, are of Italian heritage but because
of a changed name and the roles they choose to play, are rarely linked to their
Italian ancestry. For example, actor Alan Alda,
"Hawkeye" of TV's M.A.S.H.
fame, was born Alfonso D'Abruzzo.
When the actor's father, Robert Alda, entered show business he changed his Italian surname
to better assimilate into American culture.
Actress Yvonne DeCarlo, "Lily Munster" of TV's "The Munsters",
was born Peggy Middleton, but changed her average sounding name to the more
exotic, Italian sounding, Yvonne DeCarlo.
During the 1960s,
when Jack Paar was king of late night television, he
had as a regular guest on his show an Italian born golf pro by the name of
"Guido Panzini".
Audiences, especially Italian Americans, fell in love with the handsome and
hilarious Italian golf pro from Salerno,
Italy. Panzini returned again and again to the show, week after
week, the Italian community embraced the comedian with great affection
believing him to be from the old country. Until it was revealed that the whole
thing had been a clever ruse and the Italian golf pro was, in reality, Irish
American comic Pat Harrington Jr. Harrington had all the gestures, mannerisms
and the Italian accent down so well he fooled just about everyone, including
Italian Americans.
Mannerisms,
images, and an association with playing sinister character roles influenced how
an audience perceived the ethnic background of their favorite stars. During the
1930s and '40s, one of Hollywood's popular dramatic actors was Edward G. Robinson
(Emanuel Goldenberg), the actor was not Italian but but
he portrayed so many mobsters with ethnic surnames that fans mistakenly
believed him to be of Italian descent. Another actor from that era was Italian
American Richard Conte who chose to keep his original family name and, perhaps,
because of it, and his dark, ethnic, looks, was typecast throughout his career
as a streetwise tough guy and mobster boss. He is best remembered for his work
in "Oceans 11" and The Godfather trilogy.
One of TV's most prolific actors, during the golden age of
television, was Anthony (Tony) Caruso. During TVs western genre, Caruso, the
son of Italian immigrants, was cast in so many Native American roles, that most
TV viewers believed the actor to be Native American.
Anthony Quinn is
a vintage Hollywood actor with strong, ethnic,
good looks commonly believed to be Italian American. His work with famous
director Federico Fellini, and Italian born actresses Anna Magnani
and Sophia Loren added to that belief. In realty, Quinn is of Mexican-Irish
descent.
Everybody loves
Raymond, especially Italian American TV viewers who can well relate to Ray's Italian American family, his brother Robert, his
wife Debra, his father Frank and mother Marie. However, despite all the
realism, Ray Romano is the only actor on the series who's heritage is Italian American. Henry
Winkler did such a convincing job of acting like the cool, motorcycle riding
"Fonzie" Fonzarelli
on "Happy Days", that fans believed him to be Italian. Truth is,
Winkler couldn't ride a motorcycle
and he was no more Italian than Richie Cunningham.
Actor Ernest Borgnine won an Oscar for his portrayal of a lonely Italian
American bachelor in the academy award winning film, "Marty". Borgnine whose family names are Borgnino
- Bonselli has his family roots in Italy, but
after "Marty", perhaps afraid of being typed cast, few of his roles
reflected his Italian heritage. Most fans know him best as the comical Lt.
Commander McHale from TV's
"McHale's Navy" (1962-66).
Richard Crenna's looks
and name never typed cast him. For that reason, few fans knew the actor was
Italian American and that his parents came from Tuscany,
Italy.
His television character roles included Luke McCoy on TV's
"The Real McCoys". And
Walter Denton on the "Our Miss Brooks" series. But the role
that brought him a unique cult following of fans was his characterization of
Colonel Trautman in the film series
"Rambo", starring Sylvester Stallone. Stallone like many of the
current actors chose to light up the marquee with his original ethnic name.
The first famous
Italian American actor to change his name for the screen was,
of course, the great silent screen star Rudolph Valentino. Whose real
name was Rodolfo Alfonzo Raffaelo Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla.
No matter his name, his dark Latin good looks were unmistakable and
irresistible to female fans. Moviegoers of the 1930s and 40s, put stars like
Valentino high on a pedestal, for that reason common names had to be changed to
attract fans to the box office. Today's
Hollywood is
just the opposite, they want to create the illusion
that their stars are just like the average guy or gal next door. Otherwise
stars such as Ray Romano may have easily become Ray Roberts and Joe
Mantegna-Joe Martin?.
Many Italian
American actors changed the family surname on the advice of their agents. Oscar
winning actress Anne Bancroft was in real life born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano.
Penny Marshall, Laverne DiFazio, of "Lavern
& Shirley", was born Carole Penelope Masciarelli,
Connie Stevens was Concetta Rosalie Ingolia, Robert
Blake was born Michael Gubitosi, Nicholas
Cage-Nicholas Coppola, Vince Edwards was Vincent Zoino,
Talia Shire was born Talia
Coppola, James Darren-James Ercolani, Rock star
Madonna was born Louise Veronica Ciccone, Tony Danza was Anthony Iadanza, Bobby
Darin-Robert Cassotto and Dean
Martin was Dino Croc etti. Italian Actress Sophia
Loren was born Sofia Villani Scicoloni,
a name that would leave little room for her co-stars on the marquee.
Hollywood has a large number of
actors of Italian descent who have maintained their ethnic identity and
achieved stardom despite having names that are not easily spelled or
pronounced. These actors light up the marquee with their ethnicity: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Sylvester
Stallone, John Travolta, Leonardo DiCaprio, Danny DeVito, Joe Mantegna, Dennis Farina, Scott Baio, Susan Lucci, Annette Funicello, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Ben Gazzara, Tony Franciosa and Danny
Aiello.
However, there is
one thing all these Italian American stars have in common, the fact that
because of their strong ethnic names and looks, they
have not been asked by Hollywood to portray the
President of the Untied
States, or anyone in high
political office. Hollywood
still continues to typecast the ethnic looking actor in roles that are
generally restricted to comedy buffoons, cagey detectives, pizza parlor owners,
or mobster roles. The rare exception to this rule came when actor Joe Mantegna
was offered the role of Supreme Court Justice, Joe Novelli,
on the TV series "First Monday". Lets hope
this sets a standard in the media for casting American Italian actors in
powerful roles that inspire respect, and not fear, from America's viewing audiences.
We all know there
is no proof or reasoning behind these portrayals; no psychological study or
research that proves Italian Americans are prone to a lack of intelligence and
yet these kinds of stereotyping are accepted by the Italian community more
readily then the mobster characterizations.