L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 2014 www.italoamericano.com 8 have reunited into one club to promote cultural activities, edu- cation and celebrations. It appears that Mark's grandparents were involved in sugar running for bootleggers across the Canadian border during the Prohibition era. Later they opened a business of construction painting which was carried on by Mark's father. The family moved There's a saying that goes "when life gives you lemons", we've all heard it. Most of the times it comes as some sort of consolation or encouragement into turning things our way, stay positive through adversity. Finding somebody who really lives with that positive attitude is a whole other matter. Academy Award nominated actor Mark Ruffalo is one of those rare people. Life has thrown him a curveball more than once. Not only he has kept his joie de vivre, he has always come on top. He sees the big pic- ture, what seems bad at first is an open door to greater opportuni- ties. Maybe it's because Calabrese blood runs through his veins. People from southern Italy are renowned for always fighting harder to achieve their goals, while always maintaining an appreciation for life. Mark's grandfather Frank was the son of Italian immigrants from Girifalco in the province of Catanzaro, his grandmother Mary Bisciglia's origins were from Calabria too. His grandparents from his moth- er side were from Campania. Mark carries the southern Italian culture in his DNA. Along with his two sisters and one brother he was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a place where the Italian-American com- munity is so strong that several Italian Heritage organizations Mark Ruffalo – That strong Calabrese virtue of embracing life MIcHAel tRAVeRsA quite a lot when the kids were young, from Wisconsin to Virginia Beach, to San Diego. There things didn't go as planned, Mark's parents split and his father went back to Wisconsin. Mark moved to Los Angeles to study at the famous Stella Adler Conservatory. As most actors do starting up, he lived off bartending jobs in between auditions, he even bar- tended at the celebrity hot spot Chateau Marmont. Ruffalo was so close and yet so far away from the Hollywood A-List. At some point he even considered going back to work along with his father. Thanks to his mother's support, he stuck with acting and started getting small roles. Meeting playwright Kenneth Lonergan sparked a col- laboration culminating in the successful play This Is Our Youth. The acclaim received from that performance led to the role of Laura Linneys's brother in the Oscar nominated pictureYou Can Count on Me. Things were looking up, in The Last Castle Ruffalo was playing against his hero Robert Redford, that's when he was diagnosed with an acoustic neuroma, a type of brain tumor. Something he even had a pre- monition dream about. It could not have happened at a worse time, his wife was about to give birth to his first child, so he kept it for himself and didn't reveal the bad news until the baby was born. Luckily the tumor turned out to be benign, surgery was successful but left Ruffalo with a facial paralysis on the left side. For an actor that is a death sen- tence. For a whole year he lived as a recluse, reconsidering his whole life. Persistence and deter- mination helped the paralysis gradually go away. That's when he met director Jane Champion, who he had admired for quite some time. At that point in life nothing mattered to him anymore so he wasn't really trying to impress her. But that honesty and carefree attitude got him the role of a detective opposite Meg Ryan in In the cut. The movie was supposed to revive Ryan's career in decline as it was her first racy role, but it was a com- mercial failure, nevertheless Ruffalo's name began part of the conversation again. Work started to come, in form of romantic comedies such as Just Like Heaven and gripping dramas like Zodiac. Then tragedy stroke again in the fami- ly. His brother Scott, a famous hairdresser in Beverly Hills, died in mysterious circumstances. It was determined that he had been killed, gun shot in the back of the head. Although there were sus- pects, nobody was ever charged, and it became one of several unsolved cases of the Beverly Hills department. It would seem that life kept testing Ruffalo but he never lost his kindness towards people. When he read the role for The Kids Are All Right, which ended up bringing him the Oscar nomination, he was reminded of his brother and he modeled the character after him and his relation with women, thus honoring his memory sub- tly. Always down to earth, a few years back I saw him rolling down the blackened window of the limo driving him to the Golden Globes, stopping in front of a small group of fans, and with his big warming smile shouting, "It's just me", like he was invited to the party by acci- dent. In fact, he seemed genuine- ly surprised when one of the fans in the stands recognized him and called his name in approval. Nowadays he's The Hulk, one of the superheroes of the Marvel universe. Ruffalo brought his charm and likeability to the char- acter, ultimately grounding him and making the transformation in the giant green hero more believ- able. The successful relaunch of the character in the widely suc- cessful The Avengers, after many actors before him tried but failed in connecting with audiences, owes a great deal to Ruffalo's great human qualities. Academy Award nominated actor Mark Ruffalo

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