Raf Vallone, an internationally renowned Italian movie star, was celebrated for his rugged good looks and athletic physique, often drawing comparisons to Burt Lancaster. Born Raffaele Vallone in 1916 in Tropea, Calabria, Italy, he was the son of a prominent lawyer and his aristocratic wife. Vallone pursued higher education at the University of Turin, earning degrees in law and philosophy, before joining his father's law firm.
Despite being a talented soccer player, Vallone never achieved his dream of becoming a professional athlete. Instead, he became a semi-professional soccer player, a sports reporter for the communist newspaper L'Unita, and a drama critic for La Stampa. During World War II, Vallone served with the anti-Fascist resistance.
Vallone's early career in cinema was marked by a bit part in We the Living (1942),but he was not initially serious about acting as a profession. However, his work as a researcher on a film about labor unrest led to his casting as a soldier in the neo-realist classic Bitter Rice (1949),which catapulted him to international stardom and ended his journalism career.
The 1950s saw Vallone become a major star in Italy, and he later transitioned to the global film industry, starring in films in Italian, French, and English. Vallone gained popularity with American audiences in the 1960s, starting with his supporting roles in Two Women (1960) and El Cid (1961),both co-starring Sophia Loren. He went on to co-star with other major actresses, including Gina Lollobrigida, Anna Magnani, Melina Mercouri, Simone Signoret, and Elena Varzi, whom he married for 52 years until his death in 2002.
Vallone's first "American" role was as the incest-minded Italian-American longshoreman Eddie Carbone in Sidney Lumet's film of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge (1962). He appeared in other prominent American films, including Otto Preminger's The Cardinal (1963),Roger Corman's The Secret Invasion (1964),Harlow (1965) starring Carroll Baker, and Henry Hathaway's Nevada Smith (1966).
Throughout his long career, Vallone played many priests, culminating with the cardinal-confessor of mobster Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part III (1990). He also appeared as the Mafia boss Altabani in the original The Italian Job (1969).
