Dria Paola
French postcard by Europe, no. 991. Photo: Produzione Pittaluga Cines, Roma.
Dria Paola (1909-1993) was an Italian film actress of the 1930s and 1940s. Her name is attached to the first Italian sound film La canzone dell’amore (1930) by Gennaro Righelli.
Dria Paola was born Pietra Giovanna Matilde Adele Pitteo in Rovigo, Italy, as the daughter of an owner of hunting arms store and a cafe owneress. Already at a young age, little Etra showed artistic temperament, dancing at the age of three and reciting when she was ten, initially working for the company of Carlo Lombardo. After adopting the exotic and mysterious name of Dria Paola, she managed to get a small part as Neda in the late silent epic Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei/The Last Days of Pompeii, (1926), directed by Carmine Gallone and Amleto Palermi, and starring Victor Varconi, Rina De Liguoro, and Maria Corda. A more substantial part Paola had in Sole (1929), the late silent film by Alessandro Blasetti – his debut as a film director - on the drainage and cultivation of the marshlands near Rome, the Agropontino. Unfortunately, less than a quarter of the film remains, while the nazi’s destroyed the negative during the war.
While Sole wasn’t a public success, Dria Paola was more fortunate with the successive film, La canzone dell’amore (Gennaro Righelli, 1930), the first Italian sound feature, entirely produced in Italy. The quite absurd story about a young woman who adopts the baby her mother gave birth to was taken from a story by Luigi Pirandello, In silenzio. While her mother dies giving birth, Lucia adopts little Ninni, pretending to her fiancé Enrico (Elio Steiner) and her landlady it is her own child. Lucia breaks up her engagement with Enrico, who is about to become a big musician. Lucia’s rival Anna, played by another upcoming star: Isa Pola, gets hold of Enrico. But when Lucia and Enrico, later on, meet in the big record store where Lucia works and where Enrico is making a record, he admits he still loves her. The father of the child (Camillo Pilotto) shows up and claims the child. Heartbroken, Lucia gives in but tries to commit suicide afterward. Just in time Enrico saves her, the father gives the child to Lucia and all is well. The film opens and closes with images of Rome, and is actually one of the few Italian films from the 1930s showing the city repeatedly. Stylistically important are the different moments of double framing, when Lucia looks out from her rented rooms and mimics neighbours how to change diapers and feed the child. Interesting is also Righelli’s visualisaton of Lucia’s frenzy at her suicide attempt and his pans across the enormous set of the record store. La canzone dell’amore had its premiere on 7 October 1930 at the Supercinema in Rome (the actual Teatro Nazionale). The film was a popular success, not in the least because of the music composed by Cesare Andrea Bixio, whose well-known song Solo per te Lucia became a hit as well. The film also caused two foreign remakes, one in German (Liebes Lied, Constantin J. Davis) and one in French (La dernière berceuse, Jean Cassagne).
Dria Paola was a star overnight. By now the thin actress with the big head and fluttering hands was typecasted as the fragile and sometimes clumsy damsel in distress. At the death of her father in 1932 she moved to Rome with her mother. After the avant-garde film Vele ammainate (1931), the only sound film by Anton Giulio Bragaglia, Dria Paola again played with Steiner in the biopic Pergolesi (1932) by Guido Brignone and starring Livio Pavanelli, and she had the lead in Fanny, (Mario Almirante, 1933), and based on Marcel Pagnol’s famous play, the sequel of his Marius. While audiences liked Almirante’s Fanny, the press considered the film too stagey. The same happened with the original French adaptation of Fanny (1932) by Marc Allégret. Raimu, Pierre Fresnay, and Alida Rouffé played the leads of César, Marius and Fanny, while in the Italian version Mino Doro played Marius and Alfredo De Sanctis César.
Opposite a young Vittorio De Sica as shoplifter, Dria Paola played a department store worker in Gennaro Righelli’s Il signore desidera? (1933). Following leads were in La fanciulla dell’altro mondo (Gennaro Righelli, 1934) and La cieca di Sorrento (Nunzio Malasomma 1934), while she played supporting parts in Il colpo di vento (Carlo Felice Tavano 1936) starring Ermete Zacconi, and L’albero di Adamo (Mario Bonnard, 1936) starring Elsa Merlini. Righelli gave Paola a lead again in the Pirandello comedy Pensaci, Giacomino! (1936) starring Angelo Musco as a professor who marries the daughter of his caretaker, who is pregnant. After supporting roles in the Raffaele Viviani drama L’ultimo scugnizzo (Gennaro Righelli, 1938), L’albergo degli assenti (Raffaele Matarazzo, 1939), and Lotta nell’ombra (1939) by former acrobat turned director Domenico Gambino, Righelli provided another female lead for Paola in the historical drama Il cavaliere di San Marco/The Knight of San Marco (1939), starring Mario Ferrari. After a bit part in La grande luce (Carlo Campogalliani, 1939), Paola had a substantial part opposite Camillo Pilotto and German Paolieri in the naval spie story Traversata nera (1939), again directed by Gambino. Paola also had a major supporting part in Guido Brignone’s musical comedy La mia canzone al vento (1939) with Laura Nucci and Giuseppe Lugo. Carlo Campogalliani gave Paola the part of female protagonist in La notte delle beffe/The Night of Tricks (1939), opposite Amedeo Nazzari – not to be confused with the scandalous period piece La cena delle beffe (Alessandro Blasetti 1942), also with Nazzari. Paola’s last parts were in the drama Cuori nella tormenta (Carlo Campogalliani, 1940) and La pantera nera (1942), by again Gambino and starring Leda Gloria. Dria Paola then retired. Afterwards she published her autobiography and did sporadic performances on stage and on television, as well as in the drama Cortile (1955), a film by Antonio Petrucci and starring Edoardo De Filippo. Dria Paola died completely forgotten at the age of 83 in 1993.
Sources: Wikipedia (Italian) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Dria Paola
French postcard by Europe, no. 991. Photo: Produzione Pittaluga Cines, Roma.
Dria Paola (1909-1993) was an Italian film actress of the 1930s and 1940s. Her name is attached to the first Italian sound film La canzone dell’amore (1930) by Gennaro Righelli.
Dria Paola was born Pietra Giovanna Matilde Adele Pitteo in Rovigo, Italy, as the daughter of an owner of hunting arms store and a cafe owneress. Already at a young age, little Etra showed artistic temperament, dancing at the age of three and reciting when she was ten, initially working for the company of Carlo Lombardo. After adopting the exotic and mysterious name of Dria Paola, she managed to get a small part as Neda in the late silent epic Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei/The Last Days of Pompeii, (1926), directed by Carmine Gallone and Amleto Palermi, and starring Victor Varconi, Rina De Liguoro, and Maria Corda. A more substantial part Paola had in Sole (1929), the late silent film by Alessandro Blasetti – his debut as a film director - on the drainage and cultivation of the marshlands near Rome, the Agropontino. Unfortunately, less than a quarter of the film remains, while the nazi’s destroyed the negative during the war.
While Sole wasn’t a public success, Dria Paola was more fortunate with the successive film, La canzone dell’amore (Gennaro Righelli, 1930), the first Italian sound feature, entirely produced in Italy. The quite absurd story about a young woman who adopts the baby her mother gave birth to was taken from a story by Luigi Pirandello, In silenzio. While her mother dies giving birth, Lucia adopts little Ninni, pretending to her fiancé Enrico (Elio Steiner) and her landlady it is her own child. Lucia breaks up her engagement with Enrico, who is about to become a big musician. Lucia’s rival Anna, played by another upcoming star: Isa Pola, gets hold of Enrico. But when Lucia and Enrico, later on, meet in the big record store where Lucia works and where Enrico is making a record, he admits he still loves her. The father of the child (Camillo Pilotto) shows up and claims the child. Heartbroken, Lucia gives in but tries to commit suicide afterward. Just in time Enrico saves her, the father gives the child to Lucia and all is well. The film opens and closes with images of Rome, and is actually one of the few Italian films from the 1930s showing the city repeatedly. Stylistically important are the different moments of double framing, when Lucia looks out from her rented rooms and mimics neighbours how to change diapers and feed the child. Interesting is also Righelli’s visualisaton of Lucia’s frenzy at her suicide attempt and his pans across the enormous set of the record store. La canzone dell’amore had its premiere on 7 October 1930 at the Supercinema in Rome (the actual Teatro Nazionale). The film was a popular success, not in the least because of the music composed by Cesare Andrea Bixio, whose well-known song Solo per te Lucia became a hit as well. The film also caused two foreign remakes, one in German (Liebes Lied, Constantin J. Davis) and one in French (La dernière berceuse, Jean Cassagne).
Dria Paola was a star overnight. By now the thin actress with the big head and fluttering hands was typecasted as the fragile and sometimes clumsy damsel in distress. At the death of her father in 1932 she moved to Rome with her mother. After the avant-garde film Vele ammainate (1931), the only sound film by Anton Giulio Bragaglia, Dria Paola again played with Steiner in the biopic Pergolesi (1932) by Guido Brignone and starring Livio Pavanelli, and she had the lead in Fanny, (Mario Almirante, 1933), and based on Marcel Pagnol’s famous play, the sequel of his Marius. While audiences liked Almirante’s Fanny, the press considered the film too stagey. The same happened with the original French adaptation of Fanny (1932) by Marc Allégret. Raimu, Pierre Fresnay, and Alida Rouffé played the leads of César, Marius and Fanny, while in the Italian version Mino Doro played Marius and Alfredo De Sanctis César.
Opposite a young Vittorio De Sica as shoplifter, Dria Paola played a department store worker in Gennaro Righelli’s Il signore desidera? (1933). Following leads were in La fanciulla dell’altro mondo (Gennaro Righelli, 1934) and La cieca di Sorrento (Nunzio Malasomma 1934), while she played supporting parts in Il colpo di vento (Carlo Felice Tavano 1936) starring Ermete Zacconi, and L’albero di Adamo (Mario Bonnard, 1936) starring Elsa Merlini. Righelli gave Paola a lead again in the Pirandello comedy Pensaci, Giacomino! (1936) starring Angelo Musco as a professor who marries the daughter of his caretaker, who is pregnant. After supporting roles in the Raffaele Viviani drama L’ultimo scugnizzo (Gennaro Righelli, 1938), L’albergo degli assenti (Raffaele Matarazzo, 1939), and Lotta nell’ombra (1939) by former acrobat turned director Domenico Gambino, Righelli provided another female lead for Paola in the historical drama Il cavaliere di San Marco/The Knight of San Marco (1939), starring Mario Ferrari. After a bit part in La grande luce (Carlo Campogalliani, 1939), Paola had a substantial part opposite Camillo Pilotto and German Paolieri in the naval spie story Traversata nera (1939), again directed by Gambino. Paola also had a major supporting part in Guido Brignone’s musical comedy La mia canzone al vento (1939) with Laura Nucci and Giuseppe Lugo. Carlo Campogalliani gave Paola the part of female protagonist in La notte delle beffe/The Night of Tricks (1939), opposite Amedeo Nazzari – not to be confused with the scandalous period piece La cena delle beffe (Alessandro Blasetti 1942), also with Nazzari. Paola’s last parts were in the drama Cuori nella tormenta (Carlo Campogalliani, 1940) and La pantera nera (1942), by again Gambino and starring Leda Gloria. Dria Paola then retired. Afterwards she published her autobiography and did sporadic performances on stage and on television, as well as in the drama Cortile (1955), a film by Antonio Petrucci and starring Edoardo De Filippo. Dria Paola died completely forgotten at the age of 83 in 1993.
Sources: Wikipedia (Italian) and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.