John Kitzmiller ( English; John Kitzmiller ; December 4, 1913 , Battle Creek - February 23, 1965 , Rome ) - American and Italian film actor, winner of the prize for Best Actor at the 10th Cannes Film Festival .
| John Kitsmiller | ||
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| John kitzmiller | ||
| Date of Birth | ||
| Place of Birth | Battle Creek , Michigan | |
| Date of death | ||
| Place of death | Rome | |
| Citizenship | ||
| Profession | actor | |
| Career | 1947-1965 | |
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| IMDb | ||
During the life of Kitzmiller, they called him the most significant African-American actor from those who worked in the field of Italian neorealism . Having lived a short life, the actor played in more than 45 feature films, many of which were shot by the most influential European directors of the time. Despite American citizenship, the actor received fame only in Italy. In 1951, the Ebony magazine wrote: “John Kitsmiller is still unknown in America. ... His face is as familiar to Italian moviegoers as American is to Gregory Peck . ”
Kitsmiller played the role of Quorell in the first part of the "Bond" Doctor No, three years after the premiere of which the actor was found dead in a room in one of the hotels in Rome . The cause of such an early death was cirrhosis of the liver , which he suffered for a long time.
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Biography
John Kitsmiller was born on December 4, 1913 (according to other sources - 1915 ) in the city of Battle Creek , Michigan . He studied as an engineer, and with the outbreak of World War II he joined the US Army and participated in the Italian campaign . At the end of hostilities, Kitsmiller was awarded the Victory Medals for his courage during the battles. At about the same time, film director Luigi Zampa met at the American base in Tombolo , near the city of Livorno and producer Carlo Ponti , who just then shot in those places the film “ Live in the World ". It was they who offered him the role of Joe in their picture, which Kitzmiller agreed without hesitation.
The first film with the participation of the actor was received by critics as the intellectual and aesthetic revival of Italian cinema after the fascist dusk. The tape clearly established the blurred boundaries of the then neorealism. Kitsmiller played the role of Joe, an African-American soldier who, together with the whole team, invades a German camp and lives under the guise of a German soldier. Kitsmiller's acting was praised by film critics, and the anthropologist Michelle-Rolf Truyo called it the "silence formula."
After the premiere of "Living in the World" Kitsmiller starred in several more films, after which, in 1950, the director Federico Fellini invited him to his debut film " Variety Lights ", where the actor turned into a trumpeter Johnny. About 10 years Kitsmiller continues to act in Italy and only at the end of the 1950s he moved to Yugoslavia , on the set of the military drama “ Valley of Peace "Directed by Franze Stieglitz . The role of the actor is Sergeant Jim, saving the boy and girl from the Nazis. This episode in the life of Kitsmiller became the most successful - at the 10th Cannes Film Festival the actor was awarded the prize for best male role , and the film itself was nominated for the Golden Palm Branch [4] .
The success of the painting in Cannes gave other results - Kitzmiller finally began to be shot in the United States. He starred with Vincent Sherman in “Naked Land”, and one of the last roles of the actor was the role of Quorell in the first part of the “bond” Doctor No, which made him famous all over the world. The last time Kitsmiller appeared on the screen in 1965 , in the German drama " Uncle Tom's Cabin " based on the novel of the same name by Harriet Beecher Stow . A month after the premiere of the film, the actor died in a room in one of the hotels in Rome from cirrhosis of the liver [5] . He was never married and had no children.
Filmography
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Literature
- Saverio Giovaccini , Robert Sklar - Global Neorealism: The Transnational History of a Film Style - University Press of Mississippi , 2012 .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 German National Library , Berlin State Library , Bavarian State Library , etc. Record # 102025677X // General regulatory control (GND) - 2012—2016.
- ↑ 1 2 Internet Movie Database - 1990.
- ↑ 1 2 BNF identifier : Open Data Platform 2011.
- ↑ Awards 1957 Cannes Film Festival . Date of treatment November 7, 2014.
- ↑ American actor dies in Rome . The Afro American (February 27, 1965). Date of treatment November 7, 2014.