Franco Interlenghi

Franco Interlenghi (29 October 1931 – 10 September 2015) was a renowned Italian actor whose career spanned over six decades, beginning in the immediate post‑war neorealist movement and extending into contemporary cinema. He made his screen debut at the age of fifteen in Vittorio De Sica’s landmark 1946 film Sciuscià, portraying the street‑wise Pasquale Maggi and instantly attracting critical attention for his naturalistic performance. Throughout the 1950s he became a fixture of prestigious auteurs, appearing in Alessandro Blasetti’s historical epic Fabiola, Federico Fellini’s coming‑of‑age classic I Vitelloni (as Moraldo Rubini), and Michelangelo Antonioni’s stark drama I Vinti (as Claudio). His collaboration with Luchino Visconti on the stage adaptation of Death of a Salesman demonstrated his versatility beyond the screen, while his work with Roberto Rossellini in Viva l’Italia! and Il generale della Rovere cemented his reputation as a reliable character actor capable of nuanced, emotionally resonant roles. Interlenghi also achieved international recognition, featuring in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s The Barefoot Contessa (as Pedro Vargas), Julien Duvivier’s Le petit monde de don Camillo, Charles Vidor’s Hollywood adaptation A Farewell to Arms, and Mario Camerini’s Italian‑American co‑production Ulysses (as Telemachus). Over the course of his career he accumulated more than one hundred credits, ranging from early neorealist dramas to genre pictures of the 1970s and television movies of the 1990s and 2000s. Married to actress Antonella Lualdi in 1953, the couple raised two children, including actress Antonellina Interlenghi. He remained active until 2007, concluding with a role in La bella società; his death in Rome at age 83 marked the end of a prolific era in Italian cinema.