Raf Vallone

Raffaele Vallone was born on 17 February 1916 in the coastal town of Tropea, Calabria, the son of a lawyer, and moved to Turin during his childhood where he attended the prestigious Liceo classico Cavour before studying law and philosophy at the University of Turin under luminaries such as Leone Ginzburg and future President Luigi Einaudi. Even as a student, he excelled in sport, playing as a midfielder for Torino and winning the Coppa Italia in the 1935‑36 season, later adding a brief stint with Novara before retiring from professional football in 1941. In parallel, Vallone pursued a career in journalism, becoming the culture editor of the communist newspaper L'Unità and a film critic for La Stampa, while his staunch anti‑fascist convictions led him to join the resistance group Giustizia e Libertà; after his 1943 arrest he famously escaped by swimming across Lake Como. His early experiences as athlete, journalist, and resistance fighter forged a gritty, every‑man persona that would later translate powerfully to the screen.

Vallone made his cinematic debut as an extra in We the Living (1942), but it was his breakout role as Marco in the neorealist classic Bitter Rice (1949) that launched him onto the international stage, establishing him as one of Italy’s leading male stars of the 1950s and 1960s. He embodied rugged, romantic heroes in films such as Anna (1951), The Crossroads (1951), and Two Women (1960), and earned critical acclaim for his portrayal of Eddie Carbone in both the stage and Sidney Lumet’s 1962 film adaptation of A View from the Bridge, winning the David di Donatello for Best Actor. Vallone’s career spanned continents, with notable appearances in El Cid (1961), The Italian Job (1969), and The Godfather Part III (1990), and he remained a devoted interpreter of Arthur Miller’s works on stage. In 1994 he was honored as a Knight’s Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic for his contributions to the arts, a fitting tribute to a man whose life bridged sport, politics, journalism, and cinematic legend.