Italian Heartthrob Massimo Ranieri Portrays John Gilbert in Hollywood
September 29, the day after Hollywood: Ritratto di un Divo (Hollywood: Portrait of a Myth} opened at the Sistina Theater in Rome, a theater critic writing for the popular Italian newspaper Il Messaggero lavished praise upon the musical in general and Massimo Ranieri in particular. He wrote, "Un successo vivissimo, con molte chiamate alla fine, ovazioni per Ranieri e consensi per la giovane cantante-attrice che, vocalmente e fisicamente all'altezza, ha saputo restituire al pubblico la presenza della Divina." In case you don't read Italian, it means something like, "Hollywood rocks and Ranieri is divine."
Standing ovations followed the play. I know. I was there, leaning over the balcony clapping and waving my hands ecstatically at Massimo Ranieri as he returned on stage after the third curtain call.
Debby Guida, who recently joined Jack's fan club, and her friend Simone (Italian for Simon) had promised to take me backstage to Ranieri's dressing room after the play. I could hardly wait. My dream of meeting "John Gilbert" face to face was about to materialize.
I had had a long day. The morning and afternoon before the play I was preoccupied with a lengthy itinerary that included a trip to the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, the Coliseum, and the Pantheon. The tour group my husband and I were traveling with returned to the hotel in time for us to shower and dress for Hollywood. I had packed a white suit for the occasion. White, I quickly learned, is the wrong color to wear in Italy if you want to blend in. Everyone in Italy (except the tourists) wears black, gray, or brown.
Debby and Simone, having driven from Florence to Rome, arrived at our hotel early in the evening to escort us to the Sistina Theatre. Their friends met us there. Some of them had seen Hollywood three times during its two-year tour in Italy. Debby, who had seen it five times, brought her tissues because she cries every time she sees the ending--and now I know why. Hollywood is full of laughter and tears, and Massimo Ranieri, like the star he portrays, is capable of wringing a full range of emotions from his audience.
Gianni Togni, who wrote the musical score to Hollywood, greeted us in the lobby. I had been listening to the Hollywood CD weeks in advance and was thrilled to meet the composer of those fabulous melodies. (Guido Morro wrote the text .) What I did not realize until later is that Gianni Togni is also an accomplished singer who, like Massimo Ranieri, has many CDs on the market. Cari Amori Miei and Ho Bisogno di Parlare are among his recent releases. With Ranieri and Togni teaming together, no wonder Hollywood rocks!
Hollywood is a stylized musical presented in black and white, like a 1920s film, with an art deco flair. The stark background is occasionally interrupted with a splash of red to emphasize traumatic events in Gilbert's life. Greta Garbo (played by Yulka Bedeschi, who mimics Garbo's aloof walk and mannerisms with uncanny precision) drives off in a red car when she and Gilbert dissolve their love affair. Near the end of the play, she walks off the stage with a woman in a red dress, suggesting the two are having a lesbian relationship.
Like the black and white background, the musical is a study in contrasts: the peaks and valleys of Gilbert's career, his severe mood swings, his passionate relationship with the illusive Garbo.
The play begins in the present tense, with Gilbert drunkenly singing about his declining career and his star-crossed love affair with Garbo, but quickly reverts to a series of flashbacks. First the audience sees Gilbert at the peak of his career. His reputation as The Great Lover is illustrated with a scene from Bardleys the Magnificent. With cameras rolling, he engages in a swashbuckling sword fight. Part of the duel comically occurs on top of a large round bed with a lady under the covers, cringing in horror. Jumping on and off the bed during the middle of the duel, Gilbert manages to steal a kiss from a couple of feminine bystanders.
The scene shifts. Introductions between Gilbert and Garbo quickly evolve into a steamy affair. When Flesh and the Devil premiers, fans scramble to be first in line at the box office, demonstrating that Gilbert is king of the cinema. In the background a massive poster advertising the film displays Gilbert's name in large letters with Garbo's underneath in miniscule letters. Gilbert's reputation remains secure--until his falling out with Louis B. Mayer (played by Gianluca Terranova, an attractive tenor with an operatic quality voice, who doesn't resemble Mayer in the least).
The scenes involving Garbo's reluctance to marry her lover and Gilbert's historic fight with Mayer occur consecutively in Gilbert's bedroom. Mayer's threat to destroy Gilbert soon becomes a reality. That Mayer is behind Gilbert's eventual decline in popularity is never in doubt.
After his breakup with Garbo, Gilbert turns to Ina Claire (played by Barbara di Bartolo), who loves him but is unable to make him happy. With his career spiraling down, he gets into drunken brawls with people who hardly know his identity. But his despondency turns to joy when Mayer, at Garbo's insistence, finally gives him a decent role in Queen Christina. To Gilbert's dismay, the part does not restore his illustrious reputation as king of the cinema. As in real life, the emotional ending is heart wrenching.
Ranieri's acting skills are as impressive as his vocal prowess. Investing extraordinary energy into his Hollywood role, he moves about the stage with the agility of an athlete. His divine presence dominates the musical from beginning to end, and his Gilbert impersonation is so convincing that even Garbo's distracting five-minute "nuda scena" does not upstage him.
Gilbert may have lost favor with the fickle public in the 1930s, but on September 28, 1999, at the Sistina Theatre in Rome, I saw him elevated to Mount Olympus. Massimo Ranieri portrayed Gilbert with such depth and sensitivity on opening night that, in spite of the play's tragic ending, Gilbert reclaimed his throne as king of the cinema in the hearts and minds of those in the audience.
After the standing ovation, Debby and I hurried backstage to Ranieri's dressing room. With beads of perspiration dotting our star-struck faces, we greeted Gilbert's Italian double, who, having spent his energy on the stage, had more reason to sweat than we did. What a gracious man! Incredibly intense, genuine, and full of masculine charm, off stage as well as on. He could only speak "a little Inglesa," and I could only speak "a little Italiano," but we managed to communicate just fine. He asked me what I thought of Hollywood. Exhausting my knowledge of the Italian language, I gushed, "Magnifico! Splendido! Amo John Gilbert, amo Hollywood, amo Massimo Ranieri!"
Debby gave him a copy of the JGAS newsletter (July issue) with his photo on the front and asked him to sign her copy of Dark Star. I gave him a Gilbert/Garbo postcard from the movie Love. Ranieri graciously hung the postcard and the newsletter on his dressing room mirror. He signed my Hollywood poster "John!!!" and told me he loved me in English as I was leaving. What more could a JG devotee ask for?
Copyright October 1999, Sheryl Wright Stinchcum.