Gabriele Ferzetti

Despite the number of Italian actors who fluctuated with ease between stage and screen work in the 1940s, there still was an onus attached to movies in some circles. Thus it was that young, aspiring leading man Gabrielle Ferzetti was expelled from Rome's Accademia d'Arte Drammatica when he accepted a screen test in 1942. Once established as a star in such films as Fabiola (1948) and The Sins of Casanova (1952), however, Ferzetti had no difficulty securing theatrical work. His haughtily aristocratic features were displayed to utmost advantage in his bored-socialite role in Antonioni's L'Avventura (1959). In later years, Gabrielle Ferzetti was often cast as charmingly disreputable types, such as railroad baron Morgan in Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (1969) and international gangster Draco in the James Bond opus On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969).

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide