Mimi Aguglia

Despite hailing from Sicily, character actress Mimi Aguglia also played her fair share of Spanish/South American duennas and Native Americans. Brought to Broadway by impresario Charles Frohman in 1910, Aguglia later toured both the Americas in a repertory that included Hamlet and Madame X. She apparently did only one silent film -- the strange New York-lensed The Last Man on Earth (1924) -- but did quite a few foreign versions of early Hollywood sound films. A busy presence in films of the 1940s, Aguglia was Jane Russell's aunt in Howard Hughes' long-awaited The Outlaw (1943), Jean Peters' duenna in Captain from Castile (1947), and Mario Lanza's mama in That Midnight Kiss (1949). Her final credited screen appearance was that of Mama Rico in 1957's The Brothers Rico. The veteran character actress spent her final years at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA.

~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide