10
Italian Female Stars and Their Fans in the 1950s and 1960s1

Réka Buckley

Dear Editor,

I am an Italian man who has been living in Argentina for the past twenty‐seven years and I ask you in advance to excuse the way that I write. Here there is not much of an opportunity to be able to write in Italian. I often read in your column about people who complain about the excessive importance that your publication gives to stars like Sofia and Lollobrigida. I also feel that you too, deep down, share the same feelings about these personalities.

But these people are making a big mistake. Far away from one’s homeland, one suffers alongside the problems of one’s nation just as one reaps the joys of its triumphs. And I can assure you that Sofia and Lollobrigida, and Italian cinema in general, have given us more satisfaction than any other thing. You need to be abroad in order to understand this.

If we pride ourselves on knowing that Fermi was Italian, and by reading Italian books by Malaparte or Guareschi, owning a Fiat or an Olivetti, or a copy of the magazine Epoca, we can also be proud of two stars like Sofia and Lollobrigida. You shouldn’t seek to undermine them. Don’t you agree?

Umberto Fenoglio, Argentina (Biagi 1958, 3)

The Editor’s (Enzo Biagi’s) Response:

Señor, you are right. We ask your forgiveness. There is place in this world for all and even pride needs to be evenly distributed. Some atoms, and some “atomiche” [“bombshells”], a bit of literature and, why not, a bit of cleavage? You are correct: why should we undermine and disparage them! We should support them.

(Biagi 1958, 3)

Introduction

Umberto Fenoglio’s letter and Enzo Biagi’s response divulge some compelling information on fandom associated with Italian stars and responses to fandom in the 1950s. The letter demonstrates how stars are perceived as important national symbols—in this case rendered all the more significant from beyond the national border.2 The manner with which the letter refers to the stars also reveals that the relationship between fan and star is one of affection and reverence; one celebrity is identified as “Sofia” (Italian spelling, as opposed to the actual spelling of Loren’s first name), the other as “Lollobrigida.” Could this perhaps tell us something about the age or perhaps even geographical origins of Fenoglio? Are there regional affiliations with Naples and hence his more familiar identification with Loren? Is Sofia/Sophia Loren seen as more familiar and accessible, whilst Gina Lollobrigida is more distant and goddess‐like?

The letter also highlights the perceived gulf that lies between popular culture (cinema and stardom) and literature, thus underscoring John Fiske’s (1992) idea that fandom (or in this case interest in stars) is usually associated with the tastes of dis‐empowered social groups. Biagi’s response only serves to underscore Fenoglio’s fears by suggesting that the two stars are just a bit of eye candy.

But these dive were far from being just “a bit of cleavage” for the readers of weekly and monthly magazines. Fenoglio’s letter not only suggests the national specificity and identity of Loren and Lollobrigida but also draws parallels between these stars and other nationally lauded brands. They are equally important symbols of Italianness as Fiat and Olivetti, and their exportability is placed on a par with that of highly respected scientists and authors, the press, and manufacturing giants. This is consistent with an article that appeared in Le Ore (Anon. 1954b, 12–13) that suggested that Americans considered Gina Lollobrigida to be the best Italian product imported into the United States. Furthermore, Fenoglio highlights the meaning of Italian stars for Italian audiences abroad and suggests that the relationship between the stars and their audience is an essential one to consider as it illustrates the extratextual place of national stars in Italian society (and beyond).

Though Italian stars of the past had attracted a degree of devotion from their public (Eleonora Duse, Lyda Borelli, and later Assia Noris, Alida Valli, Claudio Villa, Amadeo Nazzari, and Anna Magnani, to name but some), it was really with the birth of the postwar Italian star system, largely via numerous regional and national beauty pageants emphasizing beauty, youth, and sensuality, that the notion of star worship began to develop in a more extensive and rigorous fashion. In fact, one of the few attempts to analyze fandom in Italy to date, Scarlini and Paloscia’s Il mondo dei fan club (2000, 26–27), suggests that the origins of fandom lie in the public’s response to the first postwar national beauty pageant, the Miss Italy 1946 contest. Here audiences called for Silvana Pampanini—rather than the judges’ favorite Rossana Martini—to be crowned the winner. Pampanini went on to become one of the leading stars of Italian cinema of the late 1940s and early 1950s, and a great favorite with the public.

This chapter will explore the relationship between Italian female stars and their fans during the 1950s and early 1960s, a significant moment in the development and extension of fan culture in Italy in the wake of the considerable changes occurring within Italian culture, society, and the media. Though particular attention will be paid to those stars who formed the basis of the new postwar Italian (female) star constellation and emerged via the beauty pageant—Pampanini, Silvana Mangano, Claudia Cardinale, and most importantly Lollobrigida and Loren (Buckley 2002)—other stars, including Yvonne Sanson and Giulietta Masina, will also be discussed. I will provide a brief overview of Italian fandom studies before exploring the particulars of Italian fandom, including the nature of star worship and its national specificities, fan demographics, the meaning the stars held for the fans, the motivation for fan letters (in particular what fans hoped to receive from stars), and the engagement of stars with their fans (what their fans meant to them).

Italian Fan Studies

I have addressed fandom and star studies, particularly within an Italian context, elsewhere (Buckley 2009), but would like to revisit some major points and mention some additional current contributions to the field. In recent years, Anglo‐American film and media studies have developed a dynamic body of research in the field of fandom and fan cultures, ranging from an historical analysis of early film fandom to the development of niche fan communities, participatory culture, scholar‐fans. Fan studies has evolved as a discipline with a pedagogy of its own.3 By contrast, the study of the relationship between Italian stars and their audience is very much in its embryonic stage. Despite a growing body of important work—including studies on early stardom (Dalle Vacche 2008; Jandelli 2006, 2007; Welle 2014), stars as national icons (Gundle 1995, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2013; Buckley 2002, 2009), stars and performance (Landy 2008), star careers within their industrial context (Small 2009), stars and gender (Buckley 2002, 2009; Gundle 2007; Reich 2004; Wood 2005; O'Rawe 2014), and contemporary stardom (O'Rawe 2014)—very little scholarly attention has been devoted to audiences and reception. While there have been some inroads made into the study of cinema and spectatorship in Italy,4 the analysis of the public’s perception of, response to, and relationship with collective or single Italian film stars remains negligible. Scarlini and Paloscia’s (2000) Il mondo dei fan club is one of only two book‐length volumes, published in Italy, dedicated to an analysis of fandom. However, this light‐hearted work looks generally at Hollywood stars, while making only occasional references to Italian stars and their audiences. Enrica Tedeschi’s Vita da fan (2003) is the first serious academic research into Italian fandom to be published in Italy; however, it is restricted to music fandom—in particular, followers of the popular singer, Angelo Branduardi.

There has been very little historical research undertaken on Italian audiences and reception. In cases where historical audiences are referred to, audience reception and response are not necessarily addressed in an empirical manner. Catherine O'Rawe (2010, 292) notes, “in most cases … we do not know [how audiences responded to star performances and star personae], although greater archival research into star reception and work on audiences will help us.” One significant advance into the area of star reception and audiences in Italy is Stephen Gundle and David Forgacs’s Mass Culture and Italian Society: From Fascism to the Cold War (2007). Through their collection of invaluable oral history accounts, they yield insights into the cultural memory of cinema‐going and star reception in the Fascist and immediate postwar periods, and their methodology is similar in its ethnohistorical approach to the works of Jackie Stacey (1994) and Annette Kuhn (2002). Treveri Gennari, O'Rawe, and Hipkins (2011) outline a research project on Italian cinema‐going audiences of the 1940s and 1950s, which promises to provide an important contribution to Italian reception studies. Much more work along these lines needs to be done in order to strengthen what is still a highly neglected area of Italian film studies.

Methodology

The research for this chapter consisted of a close study of over 2000 magazines and periodicals, covering a period from 1944 to the early 1960s. Popular culture weekly and monthly magazines, women’s magazines, photo‐romance publications, cultural and cinema‐specific periodicals, and pedagogical and Catholic publications were consulted. Some of the sources include: Epoca, La Settimana Incom Illustrata, Noi Donne, Tempo, Hollywood/Festival, Cinema, Cinema Nuovo, Eva, Bellezza, Annabella, Le Ore, Gente, Oggi, La Domenica del Corriere, Primo Amore, Prime Visioni, Bolero Film, Grand Hotel, Un Pubblico al Cinema, Humanitas, Pedagogia e Vita, Educazione, and La Civiltà Cattolica. In addition, the provincial newspaper Il Giornale di Brescia was examined with a view to exploring the discourse of stardom and responses to stars on a sample local level.

I have examined up to 3 years’ worth of the contents of the magazines in order to investigate thoroughly how the stars were discussed, how frequently they appeared in various publications, when the visibility of a particular star increased or waned, and whether there were any similarities or differences between the presence and discussion of stars across publications. Articles debating the popularity of stars and the relationship that stars had with their admirers were of particular interest. The publication of readers’ letters to the editors of various magazines and periodicals—such as Umberto Fenoglio’s letter to Biagi—were especially valuable in assessing some of the points above.

These magazines were important sources not only for diffusing a star’s image across media texts but also for demonstrating parasocial interaction between stars and their public. This is a second degree of intimacy that usually stems from representations of the star rather than from direct contact (Rojek 2001, 52). Readers become familiar with the private lives of celebrities through published articles—and their published responses to the stars reveal the manner in which they construct a parasocial bond with them. Conversely (and given the difficulty involved in accessing the personal archives of the stars discussed here), the published responses of the stars to their fans’ mail enable us to grasp the nature of their involvement in the parasocial star–fan dynamic.

The Peculiarity of Fandom in Italy

Fan culture developed relatively later in Italy in comparison with the United States or the United Kingdom. One reason for this was that Italy did not have a developed studio system with the necessary publicity departments on the scale of MGM or the Rank Organisation. This meant that there was no established system for promoting, launching, and maintaining the star image and visibility in the public sphere. Italian stars were largely responsible for developing their image. In Hollywood, official fan clubs, such as those devoted to Joan Crawford and Deanna Durbin—discussed by Barbas (2002) and Stacey (1994)—were organized and maintained by the studios with a view to launching and perpetuating the relationship between the public and the actors under contract to them. As a point of contrast, according to the journalist Arturo Lusini (1956, 6–9) at the beginning of her career, Gina Lollobrigida’s sister Maria helped her famous sibling on a part‐time voluntary basis to organize the star’s fan mail. Claudia Cardinale’s father cataloged and archived his daughter’s fan correspondence (Buckley 2009, 538).

Not only was family often essential in terms of facilitating the relationship between Italian stars and their fans, but the stars’ image—irrespective of their sex‐symbol status—was (Sophia Loren apart) often based upon family‐oriented, clean‐living, scandal‐free values. The stars’ media image, though not always reproduced in their film roles, was fiercely promoted in newspapers and magazines. The success of these star images can be seen in the manner in which admirers and members of the public (both in Italy and abroad) responded to the stars in private letters and, most significantly, for the scope of this chapter, in letters published in weekly and monthly magazines.

The Magazines

As the 1950s progressed, the number of weekly and monthly magazines available for readers escalated, as did the presence of stars within them. Female stars were a regular feature of film‐ and entertainment‐related publications, such as Hollywood/Festival and Bolero Film, but they were also a staple of current‐events, political, and culture‐oriented weeklies and monthlies, such as Epoca, Tempo, and Noi Donne. The rise in the presence of stars in magazines is most visibly played out on front covers. In 1948, for example, the front covers of Tempo showed long‐shot images of politicians and of Italy’s recently deposed royal family, as well as a few mid‐shot photographs of ordinary women with their children. By 1957, the front covers of Tempo were dominated with mid or close‐up shots of Italian and foreign stars, often posing in a seductive manner, and almost always of young women. All the issues of Tempo in May, June, and August 1957 contained medium, but mainly close‐up, shots of Italian and foreign female stars on their front covers.

Joke Hermes (cited in Turner 2004, 115) has suggested that celebrity culture establishes the conversational codes and meanings through which secular societies are constructed and interact. Though Italy was not a secular society, Gundle (2002, 331) notes that already in 1941 Film published two articles by Alessandro Ferraù titled “Lettere d'amore” (1941a, 8) and “Lettere d'amore a Roberto Villa” (1941b, 11), in which he analyzed a sample of letters written by the public to their idols. The 1950s marked a significant shift in terms of the manner in which stardom became an increasingly significant means of communication as well as a means to communicate with others. Magazines provided an important space for closing the gap between star and fan. The “Letters to Ortensia” page of Primo Amore: Settimanale di storie vere e vicende d’amore and the “Oscar’s Post” page of Bolero Film published, upon request, the addresses of stars. Examining these letters’ pages, we can glean which stars were popular at a particular time. For example, Silvana Pampanini’s address was repeatedly requested and reprinted in the 1954 issues of Primo Amore, while the address of Elsa Martinelli was requested and published in the November 25, 1956, issue of Bolero Film, and Virna Lisi’s address was published in the December 16, 1956, issue of the same magazine. These are important dates in terms of the release of their films, and underscore the success of press build‐ups alongside the films themselves in generating audience attention to the stars. This supports Alessandro Ferraù’s findings, which Gundle draws upon when claiming that “the quantity of letters received went up when the recipient was appearing in a film engaged in a first run and declined after the film closed” (331).

My research has revealed important shifts in the status of particular stars over time as well as highlighting the preferences of particular stars on the part of readers of certain publications. For example, Pampanini monopolized the pages of Le Ore in 1953. Annabella (Anon. 1954a, 31) also emphasized the popularity of the young star with the Italian public. Between 1954 and 1955, Gina Lollobrigida’s presence dominated a variety of magazines such as Epoca, Festival, Tempo, and La Settimana Incom Illustrata. At the same time, the “rivalry” between Loren and Lollobrigida was played out in a host of magazines between 1955 and 1958, and was especially evident in Epoca. This moment is of particular interest as it represents the transitional status of these two stars as Italy’s leading dive. 1957 was an important year for the publicity surrounding the notorious proxy marriage of Loren to Carlo Ponti (as well as Loren’s burgeoning Hollywood career), and for coverage of Lollobrigida in conjunction with her pregnancy and new maternal status.

The press was largely responsible for instigating the rivalry between the two women, and this was best illustrated through the amount of column‐inch space devoted to them in the local, national, and international press. It is intriguing to see how fans were also embroiled in the Loren/Lollobrigida conflict, in what became known as the “battle of the bosoms.” One such example of this can be found in a letter written by Narciso Basile (1956, 5) from Palermo to the editor of Epoca, titled “We appreciate La Lollo,” which demonstrates the extent of his support for the star:

Why doesn’t Epoca concern itself with the goings on in Italian cinema? Why did Gina Lollobrigida not appear on the front cover of a single issue of the magazine during 1956 whilst Loren appeared on the front of two issues? You announced that Lollo would appear on the cover of one issue and then it never materialized. Why? If Epoca is intent upon obstructing La Lollo, then I will not hesitate to withdraw my subscription ….

By the 1950s, not only did magazine covers frequently become a site of fan contestation and fan loyalty in Italy, but, as Basile’s letter attests, they were also evidence of star power, and fans paid close attention to the frequency with which their idols appeared on the front covers of magazines. Mario D’Alberti (1954, 6) wrote in Festival: “this month [Gina Lollobrigida] had the great satisfaction of appearing simultaneously on the front cover of the American publications Life and Look as well as on the cover of the French magazine Paris Match; something that no other actress has yet achieved. This confirms the international status of Gina who today is second to none in the firmament of world stardom.”

Lollobrigida and Loren were the two stars who received not only the greatest praise from people writing in to the magazines, but also, arguably, the most criticism. The criticism tended to fall into three categories. Firstly, readers complained about the frequency and amount of coverage that Loren and Lollobrigida received. This was a trend that occurred over a range of publications but that was particularly visible in Epoca. Pietro Morandi’s letter “Too much Sofia?” (Morandi 1957, 7) stated, “Dear Editor, I am a regular subscriber to Epoca. Believe me when I say that not only am I not interested in the behind‐the‐scenes gossip about the Loren‐Ponti marriage, but I am in fact fed‐up with [hearing about] them.” Dottore Marco Pauri5 (1957, 3) from Parma wrote:

Dear Editor,

I … would like to know your thoughts on the fact that the most popular daily papers publish gaudy articles on the maternity of Mrs. Lollobrigida giving it such attention that only an event of national interest could justify. Do you not think that such an exaggerated behavior, on the part of these dailies, could prove offensive to the good sense and intelligence of the majority of its readers?

Secondly, there was much criticism surrounding the exorbitant salaries earned by these stars. For example Alessio Barbaris (1958, 3) from Turin wrote a lengthy letter to the Editor of La Domenica del Corriere in which he compared star salaries to the much lower average wages of “ordinary” Italians. Lollobrigida often received the harshest criticism. In 1953, the young star’s salary had reportedly risen from 7,000,000 lire to 40,000,000 lire in the space of only 8 months (Berti 1953, 16–17).6 By 1958 (Anon. 1958, 3), Noi Donne reports that Lollobrigida and the producer Angelo Rizzoli were at loggerheads over the staggering 120 million lire that the star had requested as her salary for the leading role in Venere imperiale (Imperial Venus, Jean Delannoy, 1962).

The public’s disapproval of the stars extended to moral issues. The Loren‐Ponti proxy marriage was singled out for greatest criticism. Amelia Caporali's letter from Rome, published in La Settimana Incom Illustrata and titled “Anti‐Loren” (1958, 2) bitterly complained about the excessive attention given over to Loren in the press, as well as denouncing Loren’s marital status: “Is it possible that one can no longer open a newspaper without having to see Sophia Loren’s face? It’s really getting over the top now. And why should she be called ‘Mrs. Ponti’ when, for us Italians, she has no right to be considered as such? I’d understand other [publications], but La Settimana Incom should show better taste than this.”

The virtues of Loren and Lollobrigida were frequently compared in the press, with Lollobrigida almost always claiming the moral high ground over her younger rival, though often placing second in other ways. In Irene Brin’s agony aunt column “The Countess Clara’s Advice Column” in La Settimana Incom Illustrata (1958, 47), “Protesto” writes, “and so whom do you prefer, Gina Lollobrigida or Sofia Loren!?” The Countess Clara’s response: “I prefer Catholic marriages over civil marriages, if that’s what you are alluding to here. But Sofia has now become much more beautiful than Gina and, an even bigger miracle, she has learnt how to dress herself [with style].” However, on occasions one can find examples of how Lollobrigida’s virtue was also called into question—then to be defended—by readers and journalists. In “AntiLollo,” which was published in the readers’ letters page of the local newspaper Il Giornale di Brescia, Dottoressa Anna Dini (1954, 3) from Trento writes to Il Postino (the Postman):

It is known how Lollobrigida, this uneducated girl, daughter of pastors, who is incapable of any honest work due to her limited skills, was unable to find anything better than to “break into” the world of cinema, where she then did not make a name for herself due to her intelligence, but solely due to the banality of her performances … whether these included exhibiting herself in slutty clothes and poses …. [T]hat poor husband of hers, Dr. Skofic, what does he think of the whorish exhibitions of Gina?

To which “Il Postino” replied, “Lollobrigida … is one of the few actresses who does not create scandalous rumours around her name, … her days are intensive and filled with work…” The following week “Dior” (1954, 3) from Brescia wrote to “Il Postino,” “I think that Dottoressa Anna Dina was not very polite to offend Mrs. Lollobrigida in that way. I think that the dottoressa perhaps spoke out of jealousy.”

The preceding dialogue reveals how, by the 1950s, Italian newspapers had become an important site for star discourse and for gathering information on the audiences’ responses to star figures. More significantly, however, my analysis of the press of the period demonstrates the extent to which stars aroused strong sentiments from the general public (including journalists). Furthermore, it highlighted the manner in which a sense of allegiance to a particular star provided admirers with a shared sense of community or affinity—in much the same way that online interactive fan sites do today—but this was still a relatively novel phenomenon in Italy at this time.

The Place of Fan Mail in the Stars’ Relationship with Their Fans

The correspondence of stars with their admirers provides a valuable insight into the star–fan relationship. In an article published in La Domenica del Corriere, Franco Manocchia (1957) supplies a rare example of an attempt to consider the concept of fandom in the printed media of the period. What can be gleaned through this article is that by the time of its appearance, film fandom was well established in Italy and that it was particularly associated with female stars. Through exploring how Italian stars dealt with their fans and fan mail, as well as examining the kind of requests made by Italian fans to the stars, we discover how fandom in Italy operated in a rather diverse way from fandom in the United Kingdom and the United States. This will be discussed in greater detail later in this chapter.

Manocchia illustrates how stars carefully and conscientiously maintained their fan base and, as was the case with Lollobrigida, invested not only much of her time but also her money in sustaining relationships. According to the journalist, Lollobrigida bought 100,000 lire worth of stamps each month to cover postage for replies and autographs sent to her fans, a considerable sum when one considers that the average working wage at this time was 40,000 lire a month. Manocchia also reports that, by 1957, Loren and Lollobrigida were receiving the greatest volume of fan mail of all the female stars, with the former receiving more than 40 fan letters a day. Mangano, Eleonora Rossi Drago, Rossana Podestà, Sanson, Masina, and Pampanini were also popular with audiences at this time and also received a substantial amount of correspondence. The longevity of their careers and the popularity that these stars enjoyed with the public are demonstrated in an article by Domenico Meccoli (1956) in Epoca. Writing about the Venice Film Festival, Meccoli emphasized that a star’s time at the top of the celebrity firmament is usually brief—and is often visible in the rotation of figures in the front row seats at the Festival, which usually indicates the sign of the star of the moment. He drew clear distinctions between those stars of brief duration and those, such as Anna Magnani and Gina Lollobrigida, whose place at the top of the star hierarchy was long lasting.

Lollobrigida and her fan mail became an integral part of the actress’s star image, and she was often pictured surrounded by letters from her admirers in magazine articles. Two pertinent examples include the front cover of the November 17, 1951, issue of La Settimana Incom Illustrata, which shows a young Lollobrigida in the early stages of her career, seated in front of a typewriter, inundated with film scripts and fan mail. The star’s hands are thrown up in the air (apparently in a sign of desperation) as numerous letters rain down upon her. The second example is an illustration of the by now internationally acclaimed star Lollobrigida on the August 11, 1957, front cover of La Domenica del Corriere, which depicts the diva surrounded by letters from well‐wishers as she sits in bed holding her newborn son in her arms, while clasping a fan’s letter in her left hand. Family, fame, and fandom thus converge in one image (Figures 10.1 and 10.2).

Photo displaying Gina Lollobrigida surrounded by her fan mails in La Settiman Incom Illustrata (November 17, 1951).

Figure 10.1 Gina Lollobrigida surrounded by her fan mail in La Settimana Incom Illustrata (November 17, 1951). Author’s collection.

Illustration of Lollobrigida on the front cover of La Domenica del Corriere (August 11, 1957).

Figure 10.2 Lollobrigida on the front cover of La Domenica del Corriere (August 11, 1957). Author’s collection.

Though Maria Lollobrigida assisted her sister with organizing her fan mail in the early stages of her career, the quantity of letters received by Gina was such that, by 1957, the diva had to employ a secretary (something relatively new in Italy) specifically to deal with the fan mail. This shows some similarities with the fandom of Claudia Cardinale (Buckley 2009, 538), who also had to engage the assistance of a secretary to respond to her fan mail, which increased considerably in volume following the release of her films. Lollobrigida felt obliged to justify why she needed a secretary to answer her mail, revealing the star’s desire to maintain a semblance of personal contact with her fans and underscoring her wish to remain approachable—something that has become commonplace in the Twitter era of celebrity culture, but that, at the time of big Hollywood studio publicity, set major Italian stars apart from many of their transatlantic peers.

Where did these fans come from? Was there a geographical concentration of a star’s fan base or was the fan base diverse? We discover from Manocchia that the Greek‐born actress, Yvonne Sanson, star of Raffaello Matarazzo’s 1949 melodrama Catene (Chains), was “adopted” by Italian cinema in the postwar period and had a regional fan base that was largely concentrated in the south of Italy. This is interesting and differs from the fan base of Pampanini, whose admirers, according to the locations given by fans writing in to magazines, came from all over Italy. It differs as well from those of Lollobrigida, Loren, and Cardinale (Buckley 2009, 529), who had an expansive international fan base.

Pampanini’s relationship with her public occasionally manifested a level of intimacy beyond the norm. A relationship that would have initially been a quasi or imagined friendship with the star (usually a nonthreatening friendship exclusively on the part of the fan), could evolve into one of more genuine friendship (a reciprocal relationship between star and fan), thus closing the gap between idol and admirer and bestowing validation—as well as a sense of belonging and meaning—on the fan’s life. Pampanini often sought to create a bond with her admirers beyond that of merely parasocial interaction. See, for example, Figure 10.3, in which Pampanini reveals intimate personal information about her first love to the readers of Primo Amore. She claimed, “If they write to me, that means that they feel like they are my friend. And so, I too am their friend.” I would argue that this was part of the reason for Pampanini’s phenomenal following in the early 1950s. Articles and letters published in Le Ore underscore this sense of friendship and accessibility established between the star and her admirers. (See, for example, Borsati 1953.) Pampanini also stressed the attention that she gave to her fan mail, responding promptly to all her admirers’ letters.

Photo displaying Silvana Pampanini on its front cover of the first issue of Primo amore (February 14, 1954) with a caption “Silvana Pampanini: Come ho amato per la prima volta”.

Figure 10.3 The first issue of Primo amore (February 14, 1954) features Silvana Pampanini on its front cover with the caption “Silvana Pampanini: Come ho amato per la prima volta” (“Silvana Pampanini: How I fell in love for the first time”). Author’s collection.

Mangano received hundreds of requests for autographs, photographs, and help each week. She would read all her mail, but would only respond to those who she felt necessitated a personal response. Again similarities can be drawn here with Cardinale, who would respond personally to those letters which she felt touched her most deeply (Grazzini 1966, 26–27).

Of particular interest are the longevity and rapport that, according to Cardinale, mark her relationship with some of her correspondents, thus suggesting that, similar to Pampanini, she created two‐way fan interaction beyond the usual limits of parasocial interaction: “… there are some of my correspondents whom I have responded to because I felt that they needed to have a word from me, not a response from the office. … [T]heir letters, received at a particular moment in my life, moved me in a certain way, and I felt the need to enter into a discourse with them. I am not ashamed to admit this” (quoted in Grazzini, 26–27). This quotation demonstrates how fans took on meaning for the Italian stars and shows that, just as stars acquire values, such as a sense of identity, for their fans, fans provide meaning for their idols. While Cardinale did not respond personally to all her fan mail, she, like Pampanini, emphasized the importance of ensuring that all mail did receive a swift response, thus underscoring the importance that these stars of Italian cinema placed on maintaining contact with their admirers (Grazzini, 25–26).

The Fans’ Relationships to the Stars

French sociologist Edgar Morin (1957) suggested in his pioneering study of stardom, Les Stars, that star idolatry (including the collection of memorabilia or relics and the desire to get close to or to touch and venerate one’s idol) shared some similarities with religious worship. This is a theme taken up in some detail by Chris Rojek (2001) in Celebrity and offers an interesting perspective for the analysis of Italian stars and their admirers. The Catholic Church in Italy still continued to exercise a relatively strong hold on many Italians regarding questions of morality in the 1950s and 1960s. However, it was precisely at a time of considerable upheaval within the Church, with the advent of the Second Vatican Council, that star worship reached new heights in Italy. Neal Gable (quoted in Rojek 2001, 57) suggests that there is a “moral equivalence” between the worship of God and the worship of celebrity and that celebrity culture is also a marker of the decline of religion and the rise of secular society. It was no mere accident that at precisely this time of immense shifts within the Catholic Church celebrity worship began to explode in Italy. Even those still strongly affiliated with Catholicism fell under the influence. An April 15, 1956, issue of Epoca (Bongiorno 1956) shows a photograph of Sophia Loren signing an autograph for a nun. In Festival, D’Alberti (1954) recounts that a monk turned up on Lollobrigida’s doorstep asking for a picture of the star to put on the front cover of the Dominican Order’s magazine.

The Church, of course, did not embrace star worship—arguably threatened by the fact that, as Rojek (2001, 53) suggests, “celebrities are thought to possess God‐like qualities.” Though this may be a bit of an exaggeration, Italian stars did appear to occupy an elevated position for some fans, as is illustrated by those who wrote to ask stars to intercede for them in their prayers (Mannocchia 1957, 10). The collecting of items related to one’s idol is a long‐established practice of fan culture and has been discussed by Samantha Barbas (2002) and Jackie Stacey (1994) in relation to Hollywood stars. This practice, which became an intrinsic part of fan culture in Italy during the 1950s, is, according to Rojek, comparable to the possession of religious relics in Christianity. He describes it as the “St. Thomas effect,” or:

the compulsion to authenticate a desired object by traveling to it, touching it, and photographing it. Fans manifest the St Thomas effect in … obsessively constructing reliquaries. The imaginary relation of intimacy with the celebrity translates into the overwhelming wish to touch the celebrity, or possess celebrity heirlooms or other discarded items. (62)

Not only were images (or icons) frequently sought after, so too were goods that had come into physical contact with the star. This is evident in many published letters. As Mannocchia points out, “it’s not true that ferocious fans only exist in America, capable of undressing their favorite star in order to obtain some personal object of theirs.” He offers the example of one of Loren’s fans, who wrote to the star saying: “Sofia, if you wish to make me a happy man, send me one of your buttons.” Mannocchia continues: “Loren receives the greatest requests for ‘souvenirs,’ including pieces of material, locks of her hair, [desirable] as long as the items were hers, used by her, touched by her ‘divine hands”’ (10). Cardinale was sent many similar requests from her fans (Buckley 2009). Oggi published a page of letters from admirers to Giulietta Masina (1955, 30) and her responses to them. “G.G.,” from Milan, wrote to Masina, intent on procuring some keepsakes; “It was with great pleasure that I received a signed photograph from you and both I and my parents thank you immensely. Now I want to create a sort of museum dedicated to you with photos from your films, autographs, and something belonging to you. Hence, I would be very grateful if you would be able to send me a lock of your hair and a piece of material from a dress that you no longer use.” Masina’s response was as follows: “Anything else that you’d like Mr. G.G.? … I can’t imagine what you would ask of me next if I carried out your wishes here. You can ask your sweetheart for a lock of her hair and you will make her happy. And you will remain my friend even without possessing my old clothes. Don’t let me think that I am already a museum piece.”

Italian stars came to function more frequently throughout the 1950s as imaginary sources of solace, support, or wisdom, a role previously occupied virtually exclusively by family and/or religious counselors. Fans’ letters to numerous stars contained laments of poverty, a desire to leave their small rural communities and to move to the metropolis, a wish for financial independence and autonomy. The stars, with their wealth and urban lifestyles, provided a source of aspiration and inspiration to many young Italian women who sought to gain some form of independence outside the home and the all‐too‐often rigidly paternal and hierarchical family unit. This is a significant point as it coincides with the shifts taking place within the Italian family unit whereby a growing number of young women were seeking paid, external, employment. The Istituto Centrale di Statistica, for example, recorded that, in April 1956, 20.2% or 4,850,00 of the 15,800,000 working‐age female population (14–60 years) were currently in paid employment working outside of the home, and that, between 1901 and 1951, the number of women employed in agriculture had declined from 3,120,000 to 1,964,000 (Fanoli 1957, 13).

Joli Jenson (1992, 17) suggests that “fandom is conceived as a chronic attempt to compensate for a perceived personal lack of autonomy, absence of community, incomplete identity, lack of power and lack of recognition.” In addition, Rojek comments, “the rise of celebrity culture is, indeed, intimately connected with the rise of money economy and the growth of populations concentrated in urban‐industrial locations. It is partly the world of the stranger, wherein the individual is uprooted from family and community and relocated in the anonymous city, in which social relations are often glancing, episodic and unstable” (74; see also Fowles 1992, 25).

It is interesting to consider both Jenson’s and Rojek’s claims in the light of what was happening in Italy in the 1950s and early 1960s. Mass migration from the countryside to the city and large‐scale emigration beyond Italy’s borders meant that not only were people removed from their tight‐knit communities and thrust into unfamiliar urban surroundings, but that identities were becoming fractured and problematized as migrants did not fit into their new environments while, at home, they were viewed as different through their lived experiences beyond home and family. Fenoglio’s letter at the beginning of this chapter demonstrates the importance of Italian stars as anchors of identity for those Italians who lived abroad.

The instance of a teenager, Franca N., serves as an example of the validation and meaning that national stars offered their fans through quasi friendship—making the stars a source of hope or even a trusted confidante. Seduced, left pregnant, and then abandoned, Franca wrote to Cardinale in desperation, confiding that she had already tried on one occasion to commit suicide (Grazzini, 112–13).

A common finding in fan studies is that admirers frequently show a tendency to identify with film characters and to address their letters to an onscreen persona rather than to the star herself. An example of this can be found in an article titled “Letters to Gelsomina from Her Admirers” (1955, 30) published in Oggi, which refers to Giulietta Masina’s character in Fellini’s La strada (La Strada, 1954). “S.T.” from Rome discusses her disappointments with her marriage and draws comparisons between her relationship and that of Gelsomina with Zampanò.

Magazines were vital in constructing the audiences’ rapport with and responses to the stars. Images of the latter in their homes—a regular media representation of them in the 1940s and 1950s—demonstrate a relatively modest standard of living. Forgacs and Gundle (2007, 161) discuss this in historical terms: “The stars were internal to a framework of norms that was deemed acceptable under the [Fascist] regime and that, for the most part, they endorsed. There was a preference for modesty and down‐to‐earth traits in stars, qualities that were taken as signs of Italianness.” Modesty and down‐to‐earthness continued to be an important feature of Italian star identity in the early 1950s. The media image of these Italian female stars proceeded to emphasize their approachability, friendliness, generosity, and family orientation. The escalation throughout the decade of star salaries, particularly female star salaries, however, meant that readers were well aware of the wealth of these young dive. The stars were shown to be “ordinary” people who had acquired extraordinary wealth—and through their consumption of luxury consumer goods, they also came to encapsulate Italy’s Economic Miracle.

Full‐page stories circulated in the press about stars’ generosity toward members of the public. It is not surprising then that members of the public saw these figures as a source of financial aid or a means through which they could obtain a host of desired material goods. Through examining Cardinale’s fan mail, I discovered that some of those writing to the star proclaimed their avid devotion with the sole scope of being able to request items or money. Cardinale herself pointed out that she needed to distinguish between the genuine admirer in need of assistance and gold diggers. This was true with other stars as well. Requests could range from wigs to irons, from radios to bicycles and cameras, from money to take one’s sweetheart to the cinema to train tickets to Rome, from a young woman’s request for a dowry to enable her to get married to a young girl’s demand for pretty clothes. One Milanese bride‐to‐be wrote to Pampanini in Le Ore (Anon. 1953a) to petition the star for the veil that she had worn in Un marito per Anna Zaccheo (A Husband for Anna, Giuseppe De Santis, 1953).7 Another young girl wrote to Masina demanding a pair of skates. But there was no pleasing some fans, as Masina discovered when she received an angry response from the parents of the aforementioned young girl, demanding that the star change immediately the skates that she had sent as they were too big for their daughter (Manocchia 1957, 10).

Demanding letters written to stars by Italian fans were not limited to national figures, but carried over to correspondence with foreign celebrities as well. Brigitte Bardot reportedly commented that Italian fans were the “most enterprising of all” (Manocchia 1957, 10). One girl from Genoa wrote to Hollywood diva Rita Hayworth saying, “you need to do me a favor. Invite me over for a few days to your house. I am sure that if I were to sleep in your bed for two nights alone, then I too would marry a prince” (10). The young girl naturally expected the star to pay the expenses incurred for her trip.

While there are numerous instances of Italians requesting goods from the stars, Italian fans (usually the most devoted) were also extremely generous toward their idols. Regular accounts appeared in the press detailing the gifts that fans bestowed upon them. Not only did fans send heartfelt letters of best wishes to Gina Lollobrigida prior to and following the birth of her son Milko Skofic Jr., but Epoca (Meccoli 1957, 26–29) records who some of the admirers were and what kinds of gifts they sent. For example, a group of female prison inmates knitted baby outfits for the star’s son. Bolero (Anon. 1956, 19) reports that Loren’s hotel room, during the filming of The Pride and the Passion (Stanley Kramer, 1957) in Spain, was continually brimming with flowers sent by devotees. The article also notes that not only was the Neapolitan star greeted warmly by all as she walked down the street, but an ice‐cream vendor was particularly keen to offer the star his ice cream for free, as a token of his admiration.

Italian stars were frequently cited as being the muse of and inspiration for amateur and professional artists, writers, and poets. One unnamed fan’s portrait of Lollobrigida (a gift to the star) hung on the wall of her parents’ home (Lusini, 9). The published collection of letters sent to Cardinale revealed that a number of her male fans had been inspired by the star to write poems (Buckley 2009, 552) (Figure 10.4).

Photo displaying a man and woman with Gina Lollobrigida’s portrait on the wall.

Figure 10.4 Fan art: A portrait of Gina Lollobrigida, made by a fan and sent to the star. Oggi (February 17, 1955). Author’s collection.

Italian fandom was, in general, relatively harmless, much more so than at the same time in the United States and the United Kingdom. However, there were some instances of fanatical or pathological behavior recorded in various publications during the 1950s—where admirers clearly were unable to separate reality from fiction and where their conduct became threatening or dangerous for their idol and/or themselves. Mike Bongiorno (1956, 32–35) records in Epoca, for example, that a group of fans broke police barriers in an attempt to touch Loren. On the whole, though, stories of excessive fan behavior related to Loren were less evident than those for her “rival” Lollobrigida.

Some of the most concerning responses to the Italian diva appear to have originated from non‐Italian fans. The journalist Franco Rispoli (Festival 1953) highlights the example of a Swedish fan, Lindstrom, who he purports to be mentally deranged because he writes to the star in a persistent, paranoiac fashion, proclaiming his fervid love for her—claiming even to be her husband. Lindstrom wrote copious letters, many in Swedish, and Rispoli relates how, in one communication with the star, the fan even enclosed his ID card. A further example of extreme fandom occurred on a visit to Algeria. Lollobrigida received a kidnap threat from a wealthy male admirer from Casablanca, creating concern for her wellbeing and offers by the Algerian police to protect her. Additional precautions were undertaken by the star and her husband: the former procured an automatic pistol and insisted upon carrying it with her at all times, while her husband took to accompanying his wife everywhere (Anon. 1953b, 11).

The press also documented many an instance of fervid crowd behavior toward Lollobrigida (Giovetti 1954, 13). During the 1954 Venice Film Festival, the star, accompanied by the author Alberto Moravia, the producers Carlo Ponti and Dino De Laurentiis, and others—acting as bodyguards of sorts for the Italian actress—crossed the 100 meters that separated the Excelsior Hotel from the Cinema Plaza in a horse‐drawn carriage. During the star’s passage, people hurled themselves at the carriage, falling under the horse’s hooves. Giovetti recounts how he had never witnessed this degree of fanaticism before, as the screams of those trampled on by the horse were intertwined with the ecstatic applause and chants of the fans. Such was the fans’ behavior that even the Catholic journal Humanitas (Pesce 1959, 666) referred several years later to the event.

In 1954, Gian B. Colombo (1954, 41) records in Le Ore that Lollobrigida had to request the assistance of a number of policemen to protect her as she circulated amongst the crowds at the Cannes Film Festival. The following year, Lollobrigida’s appearance at Cannes stirred frenzied behavior from both the masses and the media as they attempted to get closer to her. According to the journalist Giorgio Guglieri (1955, 5–9), a wall and part of the roof of a nearby bar collapsed under the pressure of the throng of fans and photographers camped outside the hotel where La Lollo and her husband had sought refuge.

In February 1955, Festival (Anon. 1955) dedicated a lengthy article to the furor surrounding Lollobrigida’s trip to Monaco, where the Italian star had been asked to assist in the final day of the carnival events. Lollobrigida arrived by train and was greeted by a hoard of fans who succeeded in breaking the barriers set up to protect the star, getting past the honorary committee that was waiting to greet her and flowing out to surround her. Many were injured, two seriously, while over a thousand others suffered minor injuries, which left the princess of the carnival—whose task it had been to greet the Italian star from the train—with her clothes ripped to shreds. A number of admirers were even pushed off the platform edge and onto the railway tracks by the crowd, narrowly avoiding a passing train. Lollobrigida managed to escape unscathed, valiantly rescued by some sturdy Bavarian admirers who formed a human wall around her (24). Such fan behavior was a relatively rare occurrence in Italy (with few parallels, among which perhaps would be the veneration of Il Duce during the ventennio) before the 1950s. From the 1950s onward, however, it increasingly became an ingrained aspect of star worship in Italy.

Conclusion

Empirical fandom research of magazines and periodicals in the postwar period, with particular attention to female stars, reveals that the admirers of these stars came from a broad social and generational background. Fans ranged from the very young to the elderly, from nuns and Dominican monks to school children, newspaper editors, and Italian immigrants working abroad. The fan base of Italian stars varied from a regional following (Sanson’s, predominantly in the South), to a national fan base (Pampanini’s), to an international fan base (Loren’s, Cardinale’s, and most importantly, Lollobrigida’s).

The historical fan–star relationship recorded in the press shared a number of cross‐cultural practices with the more rigorously documented Anglo‐American example; however, the rise and extension of celebrity culture in Italy in the 1950s and 1960s was specifically linked to the historical, social, and economic changes occurring at that time within the country. The letters written by the public and published in the press illustrate the conflict between tradition and modernity. The Italian “economic miracle” of the 1950s and early 1960s, coupled with the lure of American postwar consumer capitalism and the Americanization of Italian culture, often clashed with more traditional Italian values rooted in Catholic morality: moderation, restraint, modesty, and the importance of the family and marriage. The female stars of this period came to represent this conflict. On the one hand, they encapsulated the materialism of the economic boom, with vast salaries that gave them financial independence and allowed them to live in luxury, and careers that took them beyond the traditional domestic sphere and typical roles of women within Italian society. At the same time, they sought to root their star image in traditional Italian values, and to appear to their public as approachable, modest, and family oriented. The letters of the fans and the response of the stars reflect ambivalence around economic status. The materialism and salaries of the dive are critiqued, while the stars’ approachability meant that fans could seek to capitalize on their generosity and thus buy into the lure of American postwar consumer capitalism represented by cinematic stardom. Prevailing Catholic morality can be seen in the manner in which the public and certain editors discussed the stars—in particular, Loren's marriage to Ponti—or how they defended Lollobrigida's more conventional image as good wife and loving mother.

Postwar Italian magazines and periodicals provide an invaluable source of insight into the practices, tastes, attitudes, and opinions of historical Italian audiences. They suggest that some of the most fascinating aspects of Italian cinema, particularly from a sociological perspective, take place beyond—though they are certainly reliant upon—the cinematic screen. They are crucial resources for exploring the rapidly transforming cultural and social landscape of Italy in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as a productive means expanding the ever more diverse field of Italian cinema studies beyond texts, authors, canons, and economics and into the realm of reception.

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Notes