Mimi Aguglia was born on a theater stage in Palermo, Sicily, in 1884, as her mother, Giuseppina Aguglia, a renowned Sicilian actress, was performing the role of Desdimona in William Shakespeare's "Othello".
Named Giroloma in honor of her grandfather, Mimi was nicknamed by everyone, and before she turned four years old, she was already singing and dancing as a warm-up act before her mother's dramatic performances.
By the age of 16, Mimi was given supporting roles and soon became a major leading lady. At 18, she met Baron Vincenzo Ferrau, a Sicilian nobleman, and against her parents' wishes, Mimi and Vincenzo eloped.
Together with her theatrical colleagues, Angelo Musco and Giovanni Grasso, Mimi helped form the first Sicilian Theatrical Company, with Vincenzo as the producer. The company began touring Italy, performing plays in the Sicilian dialect, and their success led them to expand their tour throughout Europe and play command performances before heads of state, including the Kings of Spain and England, as well as the King of Croatia.
Mimi became one of the leading theatrical divas of her time and enjoyed the company of international personalities such as opera star Enrico Caruso and inventor Guglielmo Marconi. She then began performing plays in Spanish and English.
Her international tours soon included the US, Canada, and Central and South America. In Mexico, her company's performance even created a temporary cease-fire between revolutionary leader Pancho Villa's forces and federal troops during the Mexican revolution, so that everyone could enjoy her performance.
While in New York, writer Henry Miller saw her perform and included a multi-page glowing critique of her work in one of his major novels, "Plexus, the Rosy Cruifixion".
In 1945, Mimi became a naturalized American citizen and expanded her work to include motion pictures in the US, Italy, and Mexico. She had three children, one of whom, Argentina Brunetti, became a leading American motion picture character actress and journalist.
Mimi continued to work as a character actress into her 80s. In 1970, she died of a stroke at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, California.
