Lino Ventura: biography, personal life, roles and films, photos

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The audience has never seen actor Lino Ventura as a young man. And this is not surprising. After all, he came to the cinema already at the age of 35, and he played major roles of the first plan when he was already well over forty.

Unlike the actors who participated in the filming of commercials from infancy, and then in serious films, he never had a "star fever". There is nothing boyish about Ventura's face.

Everything about him betrays a man beaten by life, and, frankly, not only by it. He was a boxer and was engaged in Greco-Roman wrestling. And he got into the movies by pure chance.

But, as it turned out, he found his calling here. Let's follow together the life of a man who, as an Italian, glorified French cinema.

Childhood

The future actor was born on July 14, 1919 in Parma (province of Emilia-Romagna). However, until the films with the participation of Lino Ventura were released, ourthe hero had a different name.

At baptism he was named Angiolino Giuseppe Pasquale. The boy's father, Giovanni Ventura, was not happy about the birth of the child.

And in general, it was not his plan to marry his pregnant girlfriend Luisa Borrini. And so he immediately left her, and did not even write down the newborn son in his last name.

Soon, the mother took little Angelino Borrini, or Lino, as she affectionately called her son, to Paris, to her relatives. There were two reasons for this.

Firstly, in more traditional Italy, children born out of wedlock were frowned upon. And secondly, and more importantly, there was a smell of war in the air, because Mussolini's party came to power.

In Paris, Lino lived in the Italian quarter, but attended a French school. Studying was given to him not only with difficulty, but the poverty in which the family lived did not allow him to devote himself completely to his studies. So at the age of eight he left school to help his mother.

Youth

Lino Ventura (Borrini) grew up as a strong, strong boy. While still at school, he became interested in boxing.

All the free time left from work, he spent in the gym. He didn't seem to care what his peers were interested in.

But behind the passion for boxing and building a sports career, the young man did not forget about the girls. With an Italian monogamous passion, he courted his classmate Odette Lecomte.

This went on for six whole years. Lino, wise by the experience of his parents, believed that you should marry only when you are sure of your choice. Besides, he wantedgain a position in society to provide for the family.

In the early 40s, he did manage to sign a contract to participate in professional boxing fights.

The couple entered into an official marriage in 1942.

But since Lino did not have French citizenship, eight days after the wedding, he received a notice from Parma that he should return to his homeland to "settle the formalities."

War

Already on the train, when crossing the border, Angiolino Borrini (Lino Ventura) realized that he had fallen into a trap. The authorities reminded him that he is a citizen of great Italy, and therefore must fight for the ideals of fascism in alliance with friendly Nazi Germany.

The young boxer was never interested in politics. But now she's taken care of it. So Lino made his choice.

He did not work for the Nazis and fight the partisans in Yugoslavia, where he was sent, but deserted from the army and secretly crossed the border with France. But Paris, meanwhile, was already occupied by Germany.

Therefore, Lino was afraid to appear at home. He was afraid even to send word to Odette. After all, the deserter’s house was being monitored and his wife could be taken to the Gestapo or even to a concentration camp if the authorities suspect that she knows something about her husband’s whereabouts. So he hid, enduring hardships, until 1944.

Sunset sports career

Back with Odette, Lino Ventura began to catch up by diligently practicing boxing and Greco-Roman wrestling. His efforts paid off.

Already in 1946 he becamea professional athlete in ketch. And in 1950, he completely won the champion title in Europe in his weight category (75-79 kilograms).

But the athlete's star suddenly went down. Only six months had passed after receiving the champion title, as Lino Borrini expected a fatal fight with Ari Kogan.

In this fight, the athlete received a fracture of both legs. There was nothing to even think about continuing a fighting career.

Then the former boxer changed his profile. He began to train young athletes, as well as organize fights. This was enough to provide for the family.

By the way, about the personal life of the boxer and the actor. She is not at all replete with high-profile divorces and secret romances. Being monogamous, Ventura lived his whole life in perfect harmony with Odette Leconte.

She bore him four children: Mylene, Lawrence, Linda and Clelia. The couple's first child was born in 1946, and the youngest daughter in 1961.

Movie debut

Lino Ventura made his first movie almost by accident. The fact is that director Becker, who worked on Don't Touch the Booty, was looking for the right type for the role of a gangster. All the actors who came to the casting were rejected.

And then the assistant director met Lino Borrini. The massive figure of the former wrestler, as if hewn from granite, his ominous gloomy face made an impression.

The director's assistant offered the ex-athlete to star in the film, but he refused. Becker, seeing Borrini, increased the promised fee.

Lino agreed to participate infilming, but with one condition: a real star, Jean Gabin, will play in a pair with him. And his character will be called Lino in the movie.

Becker agreed. And Ventura didn't hesitate to go into Gabin's dressing room to see if he was being played.

Career

Once Ventura admitted in an interview that he refused to act in films because of respect for this art form. He believed that a non-professional had no place on the set.

But his idol was Jean Gabin, and Ventura could not resist the temptation to get to know the actor better.

"This will be my first and last film," he told himself as he agreed to shoot Touch No Booty (1954). But this work was followed by others.

Then the actor decided to change his official name, too well known in sports circles, to a creative pseudonym. In it, he combined the name of his father, about whom he always spoke only contemptuously, and the nickname that his mother and wife called him.

So a new star shone in French cinema - Lino Ventura. The filmography of the actor includes 59 works. In the beginning, he played negative characters (a corrupt cop in The Threepenny Opera or a mobster in The Valachi Papers).

Venious actor

After the release of the film "Don't Touch the Booty", the actor began to receive invitations to appear in other films. And Ventura succumbed to persuasion.

In 1960, he broke with the world of sports, bought a house on the outskirts of Paris and plunged headlong into cinema. At that time, the rolethe actor has noticeably expanded.

In addition to gangsters and hired killers, he began to play the role of internally broken people, psychologically weak characters. So, you can remember at least "The Adventurers", where the actor transformed into Roland.

It should be said that Lino Ventura starred in his best films when he reserved in advance the right to change the lines of the hero. He reduced them to a minimum, arguing that cinema is the art of action, and monologues should be left for the theater.

He also tweaked the character for himself, so that on the set he could play the way he was in life. For this reason, he put forward the second condition to the directors - no sex scenes. He was even persuaded to kiss on the screen with long exhortations only twice.

Films of the late 60s

It's only been six years since Ventura entered the film world and became famous. He was invited to play the lead roles along with other star actors. Moreover, the scripts were often written “under Ventura”.

An example of this is the movie Adventurers (1967). In this film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Jose Giovanni Lino Ventura and Alain Delon, the car mechanic Roland Darban and the pilot Manu Borelli played the main roles.

The film was a success both in Europe and the USA, as well as in the USSR, where it was passed by censorship in a truncated form. Filming was conducted, in particular, in Fort Boyard, at that time completely abandoned and in a deplorable state.

It is interesting that this fortress-island took in the film a total ofquarter of an hour. But it took more than three weeks to shoot.

And once, due to a severe storm, the entire group of actors had to be evacuated from the fort by helicopter. Other famous films of the late 60s include The Sicilian Clan (Commissioner Le Goff) and Army of Shadows (Philippe Gerbier).

Works of the 70-80s

Another ten years have passed, and the actor is changing roles again. Now he often starred in comedies. But he also enjoys deeply psychological roles in dramas. The bright films of those years are The Bore, where Ventura played in tandem with Jacques Brel, and the spy thriller Silent.

It is also worth noting the work of the actor in the role of a policeman in the film "The Radiant Corpses". The praise of film critics - the prize at the 21st International Film Festival in Saint-Sebastian was awarded to the film "Happy New Year". Lino Ventura and Françoise Fabian received prizes for the best performance of the main male and female roles there.

In the film "Rum Boulevard" the actor starred with Brigitte Bardot. Cooperation did not work for a long time. It wasn't until Bardo became friends with the actor that things got better.

Ventura didn't like costumed historical films. He was inspired to dress in the style of a bygone era only by the adaptation of the novel Les Misérables (Jean Valjean). The last work of the actor was the film "One Hundred Days in Palermo" (1984), where he played General Carl Dalla Chiesza.

Interesting facts about Lino Ventura

Despite the fact that Angelino Borellispent his conscious life in France, he never received the citizenship of this country. This allowed Italy to shamelessly cut his fees.

Legal advisers told him that French tax laws were much lenient, but Ventura remained adamant. He was a real Italian: a conservative family man, an excellent cook and a discerning gourmet.

His daughters say that their father kept them strict and did not even allow them to go outside without permission. But he loved them passionately, like his wife. Ventura died suddenly of a heart attack on October 23, 1987 at the age of 68.