Elio Steiner
Italian postcard, 1940s. ASER (A. Scarmiglia Edizioni, Roma), No. 123. Could be for the film Giarabub (1942). Photo by Pesce.
Elio Steiner (1905 – 1965) was an Italian stage and screen actor, who peaked in the early 1930s in films such as La canzone dell'amore, Corte d'Assise and Pergolesi.
Elio Steiner was born in Stra on 9 March 1905 as the son of Francesco Steiner and Countess Elena Lupati. He devoted himself to the theater when still a teenager. Following his family when they moved to Rome in the first half of the 1920s, he had the opportunity to join, in 1925, the Teatro degli Indipendenti, directed by Anton Giulio Bragaglia. Subsequently, he made his debut in silent cinema in 1927 in a short film (La chimera del biondo cavaliere), followed by the feature film La vena d'oro (1929), written and directed by Guglielmo Zorzi, who made him the protagonist opposite film diva Diana Karenne. At the end of the twenties, he was, therefore, a young protagonist of Italian silent cinema, among which Assunta Spina (Roberto Roberti, 1929) stood out, in which Rina De Liguoro and Febo Mari had the leads as Assunta and Michele.
But Steiner's real fame came in 1930 when, alongside Dria Paola and Isa Pola, he was the protagonist of the first Italian sound film: La canzone dell'amore, directed by Gennaro Righelli and shot at the Cines-Pittaluga studios and on location in Rome. Here, young Lucia (Paola), who has adopted the illegal baby of her mother (who has just died) and pretends to be the baby's mother herself, breaks off her engagement with Enrico (Steiner), a promising singer. Two years after, they meet again when she has become a worker in a record shop. Enrico is still in love with her. After a series of misunderstandings and rivalry by Enrico's other girlfriend Anna (Pola), a happy end follows.
In the early 1930s, Elio Steiner was one of the most popular Italian male actors together with Vittorio De Sica, Nino Besozzi, Gianfranco Giachetti, Sergio Tofano, Carlo Ninchi, and Mino Doro. After La canzone dell'amore, he immediately acted in a string of films, firstly in Corte d'Assise (Guido Brignone 1930), the first Italian sound film in the detective genre, starring Steiner himself as a reporter investigating a murder and costarring Marcella Albani and Lya Franca. This was followed by Stella del cinema (Mario Almirante, 1931), where the plot was rather an excuse to showcase the work and the talent at the Cines studios. After that followed e.g. the period piece melodrama Pergolesi (1932) by the same Guido Brignone, with Dria Paola and Livio Pavanelli, and Acqua cheta (1933) by Gero Zambuto, starring Gianfranco Giachetti.
In 1934 Elio Steiner temporarily returned to the theater to perform alongside Uberto Palmarini and Guglielmina Dondi in Caterina Sforza and then returned to the set to act in the films Pensaci, Giacomino! by Gennaro Righelli and based on a Pirandello play, and Giallo by Mario Camerini, both from 1936. Progressively Steiner, though, became overshadowed by emerging stars such as Amedeo Nazzari, Fosco Giachetti, Leonardo Cortese, Gino Cervi, Rossano Brazzi, and Raf Vallone, and lost his leading roles. Suffering from incipient baldness, he was increasingly employed in secondary roles, e.g. in Giarabub (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1942) about the Italian army besieged in a Libyan fortress by the Britains.
The day after 8 September 1943 he was among the most active in trying to reorganize the Republican film industry in Venice but the outcome was disappointing. Steiner only acted in one released film, Aeroporto (Piero Costa, 1944), mostly shot at Montecatini Terme. The film had only a limited release in early 1945. Steiner returned to the screen from 1946, first as the evil James Milligan in Giorgio Ferroni's Senza famiglia (1946), He was now confined to character roles. His career would continue with dignity until the end of the fifties, with parts in mostly forgotten films but also La signora senza camelie (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1953).
Sources: Italian Wikipedia, IMDB.
Elio Steiner
Italian postcard, 1940s. ASER (A. Scarmiglia Edizioni, Roma), No. 123. Could be for the film Giarabub (1942). Photo by Pesce.
Elio Steiner (1905 – 1965) was an Italian stage and screen actor, who peaked in the early 1930s in films such as La canzone dell'amore, Corte d'Assise and Pergolesi.
Elio Steiner was born in Stra on 9 March 1905 as the son of Francesco Steiner and Countess Elena Lupati. He devoted himself to the theater when still a teenager. Following his family when they moved to Rome in the first half of the 1920s, he had the opportunity to join, in 1925, the Teatro degli Indipendenti, directed by Anton Giulio Bragaglia. Subsequently, he made his debut in silent cinema in 1927 in a short film (La chimera del biondo cavaliere), followed by the feature film La vena d'oro (1929), written and directed by Guglielmo Zorzi, who made him the protagonist opposite film diva Diana Karenne. At the end of the twenties, he was, therefore, a young protagonist of Italian silent cinema, among which Assunta Spina (Roberto Roberti, 1929) stood out, in which Rina De Liguoro and Febo Mari had the leads as Assunta and Michele.
But Steiner's real fame came in 1930 when, alongside Dria Paola and Isa Pola, he was the protagonist of the first Italian sound film: La canzone dell'amore, directed by Gennaro Righelli and shot at the Cines-Pittaluga studios and on location in Rome. Here, young Lucia (Paola), who has adopted the illegal baby of her mother (who has just died) and pretends to be the baby's mother herself, breaks off her engagement with Enrico (Steiner), a promising singer. Two years after, they meet again when she has become a worker in a record shop. Enrico is still in love with her. After a series of misunderstandings and rivalry by Enrico's other girlfriend Anna (Pola), a happy end follows.
In the early 1930s, Elio Steiner was one of the most popular Italian male actors together with Vittorio De Sica, Nino Besozzi, Gianfranco Giachetti, Sergio Tofano, Carlo Ninchi, and Mino Doro. After La canzone dell'amore, he immediately acted in a string of films, firstly in Corte d'Assise (Guido Brignone 1930), the first Italian sound film in the detective genre, starring Steiner himself as a reporter investigating a murder and costarring Marcella Albani and Lya Franca. This was followed by Stella del cinema (Mario Almirante, 1931), where the plot was rather an excuse to showcase the work and the talent at the Cines studios. After that followed e.g. the period piece melodrama Pergolesi (1932) by the same Guido Brignone, with Dria Paola and Livio Pavanelli, and Acqua cheta (1933) by Gero Zambuto, starring Gianfranco Giachetti.
In 1934 Elio Steiner temporarily returned to the theater to perform alongside Uberto Palmarini and Guglielmina Dondi in Caterina Sforza and then returned to the set to act in the films Pensaci, Giacomino! by Gennaro Righelli and based on a Pirandello play, and Giallo by Mario Camerini, both from 1936. Progressively Steiner, though, became overshadowed by emerging stars such as Amedeo Nazzari, Fosco Giachetti, Leonardo Cortese, Gino Cervi, Rossano Brazzi, and Raf Vallone, and lost his leading roles. Suffering from incipient baldness, he was increasingly employed in secondary roles, e.g. in Giarabub (Goffredo Alessandrini, 1942) about the Italian army besieged in a Libyan fortress by the Britains.
The day after 8 September 1943 he was among the most active in trying to reorganize the Republican film industry in Venice but the outcome was disappointing. Steiner only acted in one released film, Aeroporto (Piero Costa, 1944), mostly shot at Montecatini Terme. The film had only a limited release in early 1945. Steiner returned to the screen from 1946, first as the evil James Milligan in Giorgio Ferroni's Senza famiglia (1946), He was now confined to character roles. His career would continue with dignity until the end of the fifties, with parts in mostly forgotten films but also La signora senza camelie (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1953).
Sources: Italian Wikipedia, IMDB.