page_title: Ettore Petrolini
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Ettore Petrolini / Career
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Ettore Petrolini in una scena del film Medico per forza (1931)
context_page_description: Ettore Petrolini was an Italian stage and film actor, playwright, screenwriter and novelist. He is considered one of the most important figures of avanspettacolo, vaudeville and revue. He was noted for his numerous caricature sketches, and was the "inventor of a revolutionary and anticonformist way of performing". Petrolini is also remembered for having created the Dadaist character Fortunello. His contribution to the history of Italian theater is now widely acknowledged, especially with regard to his influence on 20th century comedy. His iconic character Gastone became a byword in Italian for a certain type of stagey snob. His satirical caricature of the Roman Emperor Nero was widely perceived as a parody of Benito Mussolini, although it may itself have influenced the mannerisms of the Fascist dictator.
context_section_description: In 1903, Petrolini began performing in Rome at variety theaters and café-chantants, where he provided parodies of renowned nineteenth-century actors, silent movie and opera divas, rhetorical addresses, and even of the variety theater itself. In the same year, when aged 19, he met Ines Colapietro, who became both his professional and personal companion for many years, as well as the mother of his two children. Ines, who was at the time only 15 years old, was hired as a singer by the Gambrinus theater in Rome, along with her sister Tina. Ettore and Ines formed the comic duo Loris-Petrolini, performing together until the summer of 1911. In May 1907 in Genoa, Ettore and Ines were invited by the impresario Charles Séguin to tour South America. They performed in theaters and cafes in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, enjoying great success everywhere and becoming a household name in the capitals. While Petrolini was in Rio de Janeiro, appendicitis forced him to leave the stage for a month. After an emergency operation and a period of convalescence, his comeback was triumphant, with many theatrical artists giving up their pay in his favor. In a single evening, Petrolini once earned four thousand lire. After Rio, Petrolini remained a few months longer in South America. He returned for other tours in 1909 and 1911-1912, also appearing in Mexico and Cuba.
  Back from a successful tour in South America, Petrolini was hired in 1910 by Giuseppe Jovinelli for his theater in Piazza Guglielmo Pepe that had opened in 1909 with a performance by Raffaele Viviani. It was a great success and, after two seasons at the Teatro Jovinelli, the "Sala Umberto" company signed an exclusive three-year contract with him. In 1915, he formed his stage company, the Compagnia dei grandi spettacoli di varietà Petrolini, with whom he staged the revue Zero minus zero, that led to the debut of one of Petrolini's most famous characters, Fortunello, which was based upon a cartoon character. The performance aroused the enthusiasm of Futurists such as Filippo Tommaso Marinetti who called Fortunello "the most difficult to analyze of all Petrolini's masterpieces." Petrolini was so flattered by the admiration of the Futurists that he participated in some of their public events performing texts of Marinetti, Bruno Corra and Emilio Settimelli. The collaboration culminated in Radioscopia di un duetto ("Radioscopy of a duet"), a one-act play co-written with the Futurist writer and painter Francesco Cangiullo in 1918. The following year, Mario Bonnard directed a film based on the play, Mentre il pubblico ride ("While the audience laughs"), starring Petrolini (in his film debut) and Niny Dinelli. Petrolini developed an anti-Dannunzian position, something which was appreciated by the Futurists, and thus he put on exhibit during his variety sketches.
  From the 1920s, Petrolini's repertoire was enriched with a series of plays by Italian authors such as Alfredo Testoni, Renato Simoni, Roberto Bracco, Luigi Antonelli, Ugo Ojetti, Salvatore Gotta, Fausto Maria Martini, adapted by Petrolini himself. In 1925, he took his stage adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's Lumie di Sicilia, called Agro de limone. In the 1920s, he also met Elma Criner, who became his companion and later his wife. In 1930, with the advent of sound films, Petrolini returned to the cinema as a protagonist of Nerone by Alessandro Blasetti, and also featuring Criner in the part of Poppea. The film featured some of Petrolini's most famous interpretations: Gastone, Nerone, Pulcinella. The same year he starred in Cortile by Carlo Campogalliani, based on the play of the same name by Fausto Maria Martini. Cortile was released the following year in a double bill with Il Medico per forza, Campogalliania and Petronelli's spoof version of Molière's farce Le Médecin malgré lui. In Scenario's July 1934 issue, Petrolini has  94 close-ups, in a variety of poses, expressions, and emotional interpretations.
  In addition to films, he continued to make many short versions of stage plays. Petrolini's work as a playwright became richer and mo
caption: Petrolini starring in the film Il Medico per forza (1931)
exif: {}