The Death of Franco Zeffirelli

[Angela]

"https://www.cbsnews.com/news/franco-...eo-and-juliet/

Great interview with him. There are multiple parts, but this is particularly good. His English is excellent.



Great interview with Charlie Rose:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1-4MJY5dzg

Clips:
Romeo and Juliet-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NkN...F09E3A8181E52D


Jesus-still my favorite of all the ones done, even though Jesus doesn't look much like an Israelite of the time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPACpr6fGAE


La Traviata-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6Jilp_EFCI

Many, many more...

Tea with Mussolini is a sort of biographical sketch of his life, and the beginning of his English and his love affair with English literature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSvRcd2QazA

[Pax Augusta]

A very extravagant character, what is interesting is that he was very Florentine/Tuscan but at the same time an Italian not very provincial and very fond of British culture.

Zeffirelli was also one of Leonardo da Vinci's descendants.

[Salento]

I heard strange stories in Arezzo about Zeffirelli from a couple of people that knew people who worked on the Jesus series.
(massoneria, cults, weird perv. stuff). Who knows if it is true.

[Pax Augusta]

I heard strange stories in Arezzo about Zeffirelli from a couple of people that knew people who worked on the Jesus series.
(massoneria, cults, weird perv. stuff). Who knows if it is true.

Gossip. Italians are crazy about gossip.

[Yetos]

have seen it more than 20 times,
one more to see or hear it, again

[Regio X]

@Yetos
I watched it when I was very young. I remember I liked it pretty much.

Zeffirelli was also one of Leonardo da Vinci's descendants.

Very interesting. I confess I had never heard about it. How is that, if I may ask?

[Pax Augusta]

Very interesting. I confess I had never heard about it. How is that, if I may ask?

This is the first article I found

Nel 2016, all'età di 93 anni, Franco Zeffirelli, scoprì con sua grande sorpresa, che lui, nato da una relazione fuori dal matrimonio da Ottorino Corsi, un commerciante di stoffe originario di Vinci (Fi), e dalla sarta fiorentina Alaide Garosi Cipriani, era tra 35 discendenti viventi di Leonardo Da Vinci. Il dato emerse da una ricerca, iniziata nel 1973, che gli studiosi Alessandro Vezzosi e Agnese Sabato, animatori del Museo Ideale di Leonardo a Vinci, presentarono durante l'evento «Leonardo Vive».

https://www.ilmessaggero.it/spettaco...i-4559594.html


It's well known, three years ago all the newspapers in Italy talked about it. A long genealogical research on the descendants of Leonardo came out and the majority still live between Vinci and Florence, and Franco Zeffirelli was among them. Moreover, Franco Zeffirelli's father was a native of Vinci.

[Angela]

You could almost say he was raised by British stepmothers: the so called scorpioni, a bunch of upper class English women long resident in Florence who refused to leave even during the war. His parents were both married, and it seems that the arrangement met with his father's inclinations.

If you watch "Tea with Mussolini", you can see them actually trying to turn him into an upper class English gentlemen, both in terms of language, manners, literature and history. Of course, his regular Italian schooling continued as well.

"Zeffirelli was born Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli in the outskirts of Florence, Tuscany, Italy. He was the result of an affair between Florentine Alaide Garosi, a fashion designer and Ottorino Corsi, a wool and silk dealer from Vinci. Since both were married, Alaide was unable to use her surname or Corsi's for her child. She came up with "Zeffiretti" which are the "little breezes" mentioned in Mozart's opera Idomeneo, of which she was quite fond. However, it was misspelled in the register and became Zeffirelli.^[7] When he was six years old, his mother died and he subsequently grew up under the auspices of the English expatriate community and was particularly involved with the so-called Scorpioni, who inspired his semi-autobiographical film Tea with Mussolini (1999).Italian researchers found that Zeffirelli was one of a handful of living people traceably consanguineous with Leonardo da Vinci. Zeffirelli was a descendent of one of da Vinci's siblings.^[8]
Zeffirelli graduated from the Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze in 1941 and, following his father's advice, entered the University of Florence to study art and architecture.^[9] After World War IIbroke out, he fought as a partisan, before he met up with British soldiers of the 1st Scots Guards and became their interpreter. After the war, he re-entered the University of Florence to continue his studies, but when he saw Laurence Olivier's Henry V in 1945, he directed his attention toward theatre instead.
While working for a scenic painter in Florence, he was introduced to and hired by Luchino Visconti, who made him assistant director for the film La Terra trema which was released in 1948. Visconti's methods had a deep impact upon Zeffirelli's later work.^[10] He also worked with directors such as Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini. In the 1960s, he made his name designing and directing his own plays in London and New York City and soon transferred his ideas to cinema."

There were and are a lot of British "Italophiles", especially of the Tuscan variety; perhaps his father was an Anglophile.

[Regio X]

Oh!, got it! Direct descendant of a Leonardo's sibling, not of Leornado himself. Cool anyway! :)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36053229

[Angela]

Zeffirelli in pictures: a magnificent collection. You can see see artistic talent and sensibility everywhere, and his flamboyant personality.

See:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/ga...pictures#img-1