L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 12 L'Italo-Americano O n September 28, 1973, before the crowd of mourners made parking impossible, a van pulled up to Bellini's Elephant and Obelisk in Piazza della Min- erva to deliver twenty dozen roses for Anna Magnani's funer- al. As dignitaries gathered inside the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, paparazzi wondered who had sent the flowers, but residents of Rome's Pigna dis- trict guessed that it was Ten- nessee Williams. Williams' tribute was a coded message. The twenty bouquets meant alle venti, at twenty-hun- dred hours or 8:00 PM. The American playwright and the Roman actress would meet at this time for cocktails, conversa- tions, and confessions on a rooftop terrace in the centro storico. Their friendship, span- ning twenty-three years, was a passionate romance. Williams fell in love with La Magnani when he saw Roberto Rossellini's Open City. She played Pina, a pregnant widow whose lover is arrested by the Nazis. When the prison truck dri- ves off, she chases it, howling defiance, but is shot down. Williams was rarely moved by screen performances, "but this woman," he confided to his diary, "has sunk her claws into my heart." He felt inspired, even compelled, to write a play for her. For three years, Williams telegrammed his muse. No reply. Coming to Rome in January 1949 for the Italian premiere of A Streetcar Named Desire, he begged Luchino Visconti to introduce him. It was Gore Vidal, however, who arranged a meeting the following August. Magnani kept Williams waiting for an hour before she sent a courier to fetch him. At Doney, a sidewalk café on Via Veneto, the diva pretended not to speak English—until Williams asked her to play the lead in a new work The Rose Tattoo. Their collaboration began the most joyfully produc- tive period of his life. "Rome is the capitol of my heart," said Williams, who spent springs and summers here in the 1950s to escape the repression of Eisenhower's America. He and his lover, Frank Merlo, shared a huge matrimonial bed in an apartment on Via Aurora over- looking the Villa Borghese gar- dens. Nobody better embodied the city's vitality better than Anna Magnani. With her coarse black hair, sharp snout, flashing eyes, and full breasts, she was La Lupa, the she-wolf who suckles orphans and outcasts. After a hard day of writing, Williams needed nursing. When- ever he called, Anna said: "Ciao, Tenn! What is the program?" They always met at eight at her penthouse in Palazzo Altieri, large enough for an invalid son and a menagerie of pets. Williams never knew what to expect. Once she greeted him singing and dancing, wearing only a pair of transparent panties. Clothed or naked, she announced: "Ho la ruzza!" I want to have fun! They danced at Café de Paris and drank at Rosati. They drove by the aqueducts in the Annio Valley as Anna's German shep- herd raced alongside their car. If they dined in Trastevere, they demanded a huge bag of left- overs and fed the stray cats around the Forum and the Colos- seum. Often they were joined by Anna's latest boy toy, whom she impetuously had picked up and soon would discard, who sulked in silence until they returned home. The rest of the night was spent on Anna's terrace, where they sipped Negronis and admired the view of the Pan- theon. For hours, they discussed art, life, and love. Despite a string of unhappy affairs, an addiction to coffee and cigarettes, insomnia, and mood swings, Anna was happy. She was thrilled when people recognized her on the streets or when a cop in the middle of directing traffic shouted: "Eh! Nannaré!" With head flung back and hands plant- ed on hips, she released a geyser of mirth from a deep wellspring. "When Anna laughs," Williams wrote Truman Capote, "all of the questions about the why of everything are addressed more than adequately." During the 1960s and 1970s, the friends continued to meet, but the magic was gone. Frank Merlo had died of lung cancer, and times had changed. Increasingly savaged by critics and vilified by editorialists and politicians, Williams struggled to get his plays produced. Magnani, who looked her age and who remind- ed Italians of struggles that most wished to forget, was offered roles that were beneath her. "In this country," she told Williams, "only the monuments survive." When she died of pancreatic cancer, Williams was too shat- tered to attend her funeral. "Age has made it difficult for me to have much faith in things," he remarked, "but the death of Anna Magnani has made it almost impossible. It still seems incom- prehensible that the world—my world—can function without her in it." Words failed him, so he said it with flowers: Ci vediamo alle venti. See you at eight. Pasquino's secretary is Antho- ny Di Renzo, professor of writing at Ithaca College. You may reach him at direnzo@ithaca.edu. Anna Magnani and Tennessee Williams: a friendship that lasted a lifetime @Deborah Hustic/Flickr When in Rome, Williams used to stay near Villa Borghese © Giovanni Gagliardi | Dreamstime.com HERITAGE HISTORY IDENTITY TRADITIONS PEOPLE Alle venti Pasquino sends a bouquet ANTHONY DI RENZO

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