Livio Pavanelli
Austrian postcard, Iris Verlag 5311. Aafa Film. Lux-Film-Verleih.
Livio Pavanelli (1881-1958) was an Italian actor of the Italian and in particular German silent cinema. He also worked in Italian sound cinema as actor and as production manager. He directed four Italian films, both in the silent and the sound era.
Livio Pavanelli was born September 7th, 1881, in Copparo and was member of a big family of farmers and merchants from the Ferrara area – his father Andrea being also a notable patriot in the Italian Risorgimento – but as a consequence of financial disasters in the family he moved with his parents to Bologna where he visited the technical school. During his adolescence he wandered around Italy, eager for excitement. When in Venice in 1898, he fell in love with the stage while assisting a show of wandering artists, and started a theatrical career, performing with various companies like that of Antono Gandusio, and in 1902 the Venetican company of Emilio Zago. He then shifted to the company of Gustavo Salvini and Ermete Zacconi, before reaching Eleonora Duse’s company with whom he stayed for 9 years, accompanying her in her foreign tours as well.
In the 1910s Pavanelli’s film career started, performing leads in various films, firstly in a series of films with Pina Fabbri like Il delitto della via di Nizza (Henri Etievant 1913) and Il romanzo di due vite (Attilio Fabbri 1913), from 1914 on in a series of films with Hesperia like L’ereditiera (1914) and L’agguato (1915); with Mercedes Brignone like Il re dell’Atlantico (1914) and Mezzanotte (1915); and with Gianna Terribili-Gonzales; mostly directed by Baldassare Negroni, or by others like Zorzi or Genina. In 1916-1917 Pavanelli didn’t appear in films, but in 1918 he was back in film, opposite Francesca Bertini in various parts of the series I sette peccati capitali (1918, directed by various filmmakers), La piovra (Edoardo Bencivenga 1919) and Anima allegra (Roberto Roberti 1919); and opposite Lyda Borelli in Carnevalesca (Amleto Palermi 1918) and Una notte a Calcutta (Mario Caserini 1918). In 1918 he also played Saint Sebastian in Enrico Guazzoni’s epic Fabiola, opposite Elena Sangro in the title role, and he had a part in the propagandistic fake biopic of and with Francesca Bertini: Mariute. In those years, Thea Pavanelli, aka as simply Thea, played with Pavanelli in La reginetta Isotta (1918), based on Balzac. She might have been his wife, but no additional information is available about this.
In the late 1910s and early 1920s, Pavanelli really was a star of Italian silent cinema, not only in epic films like Il sacco di Roma (Enrico Guazzoni/Giulio Aristide Sartorio 1920), but also in long list of diva films with Pina Menichelli such as La storia di una donna (Eugenio Perego 1920), La verità nuda (Telemaco Ruggeri 1921), L’età critica (Palermi 1921), La seconda moglie (Palermi 1922), and La biondina (Palermi 1923). Other actresses opposite whom Pavanelli acted in the early 1920s years were Tilde Kassay, Diomira Jacobini, and Cecil Tryan. In Saitra la ribelle (Palermi 1924), Coiffeur pour dames (Palermi 1924) and Vedi Napoli, poi muori (Perego 1924), Pavanelli played opposite Leda Gys, and he played the lead of Turiddu opposite Tina Xeo as Santuzza in the adaptation of Verga’s story and Mascagni’s opera Cavalleria rusticana (Mario Gargiulo 1924).
Because of the crisis in Italian cinema, Pavanelli moved first to Austria and then to Germany in 1924, where he proceeded his succesful career, performing opposite the female stars of Weimar cinema, such as Lee Parry (Die schönste Frau der Welt, 1924), Fern Andra (Die Liebe is der Frauen Macht, 1924), Liane Haid (Ich liebe dich!, 1924; Im weissen Rössl, 1926; Als ich wieder kam, 1926), Ossi Oswalda (Niniche, 1924), Ida Wüst (Kammermusik, 1925), Maria Corda (Der Tänzer meiner Frau, 1925), Elga Brink (Der Ritt in die Sonne, 1926; Das Gasthaus zur Ehe, 1926), Marcella Albani, Lya De Putti, and male stars like Hans Albers (Mein Freund der Chauffeur, 1926). In 1926 Pavanelli played in various boulevard comedies: he had the male lead as the industrial Franz Kaltenbach in Familie Schimeck/Wiener Herzen (Alfred Halm, Rudolf Dworsky), opposite Olga Tschechowa as his wife Olga, and also the male lead in der lachende Ehemann (Rudolf Walther-Fein, Rudolf Dworsky), opposite Elisabeth Pinajeff as his wife, but he also played with Dolly Davis, André Roanne and Agnes Esterhazy in Fräulein Josette, meine Frau (Gaston Ravel), with Mady Christians and Roanne in Die Königin der Moulin Rouge (Robert Wiene), with Xenia Desni in Küssen ist keine Sund (Walther-Fein/Dworsky) and Schützenliesel (same directors), with Mary Nolan in Die Königin des Weltbades (Viktor Janson), and with Jenny Jugo in Die ledige Töchter (Carl Boese). It is clear that 1926 was Pavanelli’s most prolific year.
More films with Mary Nolan, Mady Christians and in particular Xenia Desni followed in 1927, but also parts in the Henny Porten drama Die grosse Pause (Carl Froehlich). In 1927 Pavanelli was temporarily back in Italy to play Florette in the adaptation of the popular boulevard comedy Florette et Patapon (Palermi 1927), with French actor Marcel Levesque as Patapon, and German actress Ossi Oswalda as Riquette Florette. In 1928 followed parts in the Lyda de Putti comedy Charlott is etwas verrückt (Adolf E. Licho), the Cilly Feindt vehicle Gefährdete Mädchen (Hans Otto), the Arlette Marchal drama Die Frau von gestern und morgen (Heinz Paul), the Spanish-German production Herzen ohne Ziel/Corazones sin rumbo (Benito Perojo/Gustav Ucicky), the Italo-German coproduction Scampolo (Genina), and the Ossi Oswalda vehicle Das Haus ohne Männer (Rolf Randolf). In 1929 Pavanelli played the lead in Liebfraumilch (Carl Froehlich) and Sir Henry Baskerville in Der Hund von Baskerville (Richard Oswald, next to smaller parts in other films like the Maria Paudler drama Liebe im Schnee (Max Obal/Walther-Fein) and Hotelgeheimnisse (Friedrich Feher). Even in 1930 Pavanelli continued to play in German films, such as Freiheit in Fesseln (Carl Heinz Wolff), starring Fritz Kampers and Vivian Gibson, and Ehestreik (Carl Boese), with Georg Alexander and Maria Paudler.
When sound cinema set in, Pavanelli first played opposite former silent star Maria Jacobini in the film Perché no?, an Italian version of The Lady Lies, shot in the Paramount studios in Paris and directed by Palermi. Pavanelli next had one part in the German sound film Liebeskommando (Geza von Bolvary 1931), and then returned to Italy, where his star as actor declined while still acting in films like Pergolesi (Guido Brignone 1932), with Elio Steiner in the title role, and L’ultimo dei Bergerac (Gennaro Righelli 1933). Pavanelli had one last film performance in Germany in the film Frühlingsmärchen (Carl Froehlich 1934), in which he appropriately played a singing master from Milan. According to Wikipedia Pavanelli played both in the Italian and the German version of Max Neufeld’s La canzone del sole/Das Lied der Sonne (1934), starring Vittorio De Sica. He also performed in Gustav Machaty’s Italian production Ballerine (1936). In the 1930s Pavanelli also became producer, scriptwriter and director. Wikipedia claims one of his productions was opera singer Tito Schipa’s success film Vivere of 1937, while IMDB lists Pavanelli not as producer but as production manager or unit manager for 10 different films between 1939 and 1954, often for Guido Brignone such as La mia canzone al vento (Brignone 1939) and Romanzo di un giovane povero (Brignone 1942), but also the postwar epic Messalina (Carmine Gallone (1951). In 1939 Pavanelli was also scriptwriter for La mia canzone al vento. In 1941-42 he directed his sole sound feature Solitudine, starring Carola Höhn (Pavanelli had already directed three films in the silent era: Silvio Pellico, 1915; La complice muta, 1920; Madonnina, 1921). Livio Pavanelli’s last film as actor was L’altra (1947) by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, in which he played a French impresario. After that he only continued as production or unit manager. His last job was production management of the epic Cortigiana di Babilonia (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia 1954), starring Rhonda Fleming. Livio Pavanelli died at the hospital San Giovanni in Rome on 29 April 1958.
Sources: Italian Wikipedia, IMDB, filmportal.de.
Livio Pavanelli
Austrian postcard, Iris Verlag 5311. Aafa Film. Lux-Film-Verleih.
Livio Pavanelli (1881-1958) was an Italian actor of the Italian and in particular German silent cinema. He also worked in Italian sound cinema as actor and as production manager. He directed four Italian films, both in the silent and the sound era.
Livio Pavanelli was born September 7th, 1881, in Copparo and was member of a big family of farmers and merchants from the Ferrara area – his father Andrea being also a notable patriot in the Italian Risorgimento – but as a consequence of financial disasters in the family he moved with his parents to Bologna where he visited the technical school. During his adolescence he wandered around Italy, eager for excitement. When in Venice in 1898, he fell in love with the stage while assisting a show of wandering artists, and started a theatrical career, performing with various companies like that of Antono Gandusio, and in 1902 the Venetican company of Emilio Zago. He then shifted to the company of Gustavo Salvini and Ermete Zacconi, before reaching Eleonora Duse’s company with whom he stayed for 9 years, accompanying her in her foreign tours as well.
In the 1910s Pavanelli’s film career started, performing leads in various films, firstly in a series of films with Pina Fabbri like Il delitto della via di Nizza (Henri Etievant 1913) and Il romanzo di due vite (Attilio Fabbri 1913), from 1914 on in a series of films with Hesperia like L’ereditiera (1914) and L’agguato (1915); with Mercedes Brignone like Il re dell’Atlantico (1914) and Mezzanotte (1915); and with Gianna Terribili-Gonzales; mostly directed by Baldassare Negroni, or by others like Zorzi or Genina. In 1916-1917 Pavanelli didn’t appear in films, but in 1918 he was back in film, opposite Francesca Bertini in various parts of the series I sette peccati capitali (1918, directed by various filmmakers), La piovra (Edoardo Bencivenga 1919) and Anima allegra (Roberto Roberti 1919); and opposite Lyda Borelli in Carnevalesca (Amleto Palermi 1918) and Una notte a Calcutta (Mario Caserini 1918). In 1918 he also played Saint Sebastian in Enrico Guazzoni’s epic Fabiola, opposite Elena Sangro in the title role, and he had a part in the propagandistic fake biopic of and with Francesca Bertini: Mariute. In those years, Thea Pavanelli, aka as simply Thea, played with Pavanelli in La reginetta Isotta (1918), based on Balzac. She might have been his wife, but no additional information is available about this.
In the late 1910s and early 1920s, Pavanelli really was a star of Italian silent cinema, not only in epic films like Il sacco di Roma (Enrico Guazzoni/Giulio Aristide Sartorio 1920), but also in long list of diva films with Pina Menichelli such as La storia di una donna (Eugenio Perego 1920), La verità nuda (Telemaco Ruggeri 1921), L’età critica (Palermi 1921), La seconda moglie (Palermi 1922), and La biondina (Palermi 1923). Other actresses opposite whom Pavanelli acted in the early 1920s years were Tilde Kassay, Diomira Jacobini, and Cecil Tryan. In Saitra la ribelle (Palermi 1924), Coiffeur pour dames (Palermi 1924) and Vedi Napoli, poi muori (Perego 1924), Pavanelli played opposite Leda Gys, and he played the lead of Turiddu opposite Tina Xeo as Santuzza in the adaptation of Verga’s story and Mascagni’s opera Cavalleria rusticana (Mario Gargiulo 1924).
Because of the crisis in Italian cinema, Pavanelli moved first to Austria and then to Germany in 1924, where he proceeded his succesful career, performing opposite the female stars of Weimar cinema, such as Lee Parry (Die schönste Frau der Welt, 1924), Fern Andra (Die Liebe is der Frauen Macht, 1924), Liane Haid (Ich liebe dich!, 1924; Im weissen Rössl, 1926; Als ich wieder kam, 1926), Ossi Oswalda (Niniche, 1924), Ida Wüst (Kammermusik, 1925), Maria Corda (Der Tänzer meiner Frau, 1925), Elga Brink (Der Ritt in die Sonne, 1926; Das Gasthaus zur Ehe, 1926), Marcella Albani, Lya De Putti, and male stars like Hans Albers (Mein Freund der Chauffeur, 1926). In 1926 Pavanelli played in various boulevard comedies: he had the male lead as the industrial Franz Kaltenbach in Familie Schimeck/Wiener Herzen (Alfred Halm, Rudolf Dworsky), opposite Olga Tschechowa as his wife Olga, and also the male lead in der lachende Ehemann (Rudolf Walther-Fein, Rudolf Dworsky), opposite Elisabeth Pinajeff as his wife, but he also played with Dolly Davis, André Roanne and Agnes Esterhazy in Fräulein Josette, meine Frau (Gaston Ravel), with Mady Christians and Roanne in Die Königin der Moulin Rouge (Robert Wiene), with Xenia Desni in Küssen ist keine Sund (Walther-Fein/Dworsky) and Schützenliesel (same directors), with Mary Nolan in Die Königin des Weltbades (Viktor Janson), and with Jenny Jugo in Die ledige Töchter (Carl Boese). It is clear that 1926 was Pavanelli’s most prolific year.
More films with Mary Nolan, Mady Christians and in particular Xenia Desni followed in 1927, but also parts in the Henny Porten drama Die grosse Pause (Carl Froehlich). In 1927 Pavanelli was temporarily back in Italy to play Florette in the adaptation of the popular boulevard comedy Florette et Patapon (Palermi 1927), with French actor Marcel Levesque as Patapon, and German actress Ossi Oswalda as Riquette Florette. In 1928 followed parts in the Lyda de Putti comedy Charlott is etwas verrückt (Adolf E. Licho), the Cilly Feindt vehicle Gefährdete Mädchen (Hans Otto), the Arlette Marchal drama Die Frau von gestern und morgen (Heinz Paul), the Spanish-German production Herzen ohne Ziel/Corazones sin rumbo (Benito Perojo/Gustav Ucicky), the Italo-German coproduction Scampolo (Genina), and the Ossi Oswalda vehicle Das Haus ohne Männer (Rolf Randolf). In 1929 Pavanelli played the lead in Liebfraumilch (Carl Froehlich) and Sir Henry Baskerville in Der Hund von Baskerville (Richard Oswald, next to smaller parts in other films like the Maria Paudler drama Liebe im Schnee (Max Obal/Walther-Fein) and Hotelgeheimnisse (Friedrich Feher). Even in 1930 Pavanelli continued to play in German films, such as Freiheit in Fesseln (Carl Heinz Wolff), starring Fritz Kampers and Vivian Gibson, and Ehestreik (Carl Boese), with Georg Alexander and Maria Paudler.
When sound cinema set in, Pavanelli first played opposite former silent star Maria Jacobini in the film Perché no?, an Italian version of The Lady Lies, shot in the Paramount studios in Paris and directed by Palermi. Pavanelli next had one part in the German sound film Liebeskommando (Geza von Bolvary 1931), and then returned to Italy, where his star as actor declined while still acting in films like Pergolesi (Guido Brignone 1932), with Elio Steiner in the title role, and L’ultimo dei Bergerac (Gennaro Righelli 1933). Pavanelli had one last film performance in Germany in the film Frühlingsmärchen (Carl Froehlich 1934), in which he appropriately played a singing master from Milan. According to Wikipedia Pavanelli played both in the Italian and the German version of Max Neufeld’s La canzone del sole/Das Lied der Sonne (1934), starring Vittorio De Sica. He also performed in Gustav Machaty’s Italian production Ballerine (1936). In the 1930s Pavanelli also became producer, scriptwriter and director. Wikipedia claims one of his productions was opera singer Tito Schipa’s success film Vivere of 1937, while IMDB lists Pavanelli not as producer but as production manager or unit manager for 10 different films between 1939 and 1954, often for Guido Brignone such as La mia canzone al vento (Brignone 1939) and Romanzo di un giovane povero (Brignone 1942), but also the postwar epic Messalina (Carmine Gallone (1951). In 1939 Pavanelli was also scriptwriter for La mia canzone al vento. In 1941-42 he directed his sole sound feature Solitudine, starring Carola Höhn (Pavanelli had already directed three films in the silent era: Silvio Pellico, 1915; La complice muta, 1920; Madonnina, 1921). Livio Pavanelli’s last film as actor was L’altra (1947) by Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia, in which he played a French impresario. After that he only continued as production or unit manager. His last job was production management of the epic Cortigiana di Babilonia (Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia 1954), starring Rhonda Fleming. Livio Pavanelli died at the hospital San Giovanni in Rome on 29 April 1958.
Sources: Italian Wikipedia, IMDB, filmportal.de.