In 1972, he played a small but important part in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango In Paris, as well as appearing in Bava’s perennially popular horror film Baron Blood.Girotti’s later films included Ettore Scola’s Passion d’amore (1981) and Liliana Cavani’s Interno berlinese (The Berlin Affair, 1985). Also in 1949, Girotti made his first foray into the historical epic, in Blasetti’s Fabiola, the film which set the trend for much of the sword-and-sandal genre which flourished in the 1950s.Having appeared in the d?t films of Soldati, Visconti, and De Santis, Girotti continued this trend in Michelangelo Antonioni’s first film, Cronaca di un amore (Story of a Love Affair, 1950). Girotti’s theatre work also included Euripides’ Hippolytus, staged in the ancient Greek theatre at Syracuse in 1956.In the immediate post-war period, Girotti made La porta del cielo (The Gate of Heaven, 1945) for Vittorio De Sica, as well as Giuseppe De Santis’s Caccia tragica (Tragic Hunt, 1947) and two films for Pietro Germi, Gioventu perduta (Lost Youth, 1949) and In nome della legge (In the Name of the Law, 1949), the latter of which won him Italy’s Silver Ribbon award as best actor. He began to take acting lessons while studying jurisprudence and in 1939 was chosen for a small part in Mario Soldati’s d?t film, Dora Nelson. Two years later, he made his name in a dual role in Alessandro Blasetti’s mythological epic Il corona di ferro (“The Iron Crown”), and was then cast by Rossellini as a prisoner-of-war in Un pilota ritorna (“A Pilot Returns”, 1942).That year, Girotti appeared in perhaps his most important film, Visconti’s Ossessione, a reworking of James M. MASSIMO GIROTTI was one of the most popular leading men of post-war Italian cinema, an actor in whom an easy charm and athletic build were elegantly combined to ensure six decades of continuous employment in more than 100 films, together with a variety of roles which ranged from the serious and dramatic, for such directors as Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, to the colourful and commercial, for such as Riccardo Freda, Sergio Corbucci and Mario Bava.

Massimo Girotti, actor: born Mogliano, Italy 18 May 1918; married (one son, one daughter); died Rome 5 January 2003.Massimo Girotti was one of the most popular leading men of post-war Italian cinema, an actor in whom an easy charm and athletic build were elegantly combined to ensure six decades of continuous employment in more than 100 films, together with a variety of roles which ranged from the serious and dramatic, for such directors as Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, and Pier Paolo Pasolini, to the colourful and commercial, for such as Riccardo Freda, Sergio Corbucci and Mario Bava.
Born in the Macerata province of Italy in 1918, the son of a chemist, Girotti was raised in Rome. The 34-page treatise, written by Jacobus Calchus, a Carmelite friar, was on the market for £650,000 last year.. Since 1997, Museums sponsored by the department had spent £95m on acquisitions, and items accepted in lieu of tax schemes were valued at nearly £37m, he said.ART AT RISK¿ Michelangelo drawing, ‘Study of a mourning woman’, right,from Castle Howard. Sold for £5.9m at auction in July.¿ The Jenkins Venus, the centrepiece of the sculpture gallery at Newby Hall, sold at Christie’s last June for £7.9m¿ The main manuscript relating to Henry VIII’s divorce. A decision on deferring the export of a £31.5m painting by Raphael, Madonna of the Pinks, is expected next week.The committee’s report said: “The Waverley system … was set up to protect Britain’s national heritage by facilitating the purchase by UK institutions of items of outstanding historical, aesthetic and scholarly importance that would otherwise have been exported.

The figures in our reports have shown that, through a lack of funding, the system has failed totally to achieve this.”Twenty items were bought by UK museums and galleries last year after deferral, but nearly all were low-value.”Only a small proportion of items in terms of value are retained in this country, despite the heroic efforts of our museums, galleries, libraries and other institutions. This issue has been highlighted as being the fundamental weakness of the present system,” the report said. “Some might ask whether it is in fact worth the candle to retain the Waverley system, given the limited success … Such disillusionment is understandable and will inevitably increase if steps are not taken to remedy the situation.”A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said the national museums and galleries had received real-term increases in their budgets and it was up to trustees to decide what proportion they spent on acquisitions. But last year, the masterpieces lost overseas included Michelangelo’s drawing The Risen Christ, worth £8.3m, which went to an American client of a German dealer, and Parry’s Portrait of Sir Joseph Banks with Omai and Dr Solander, which went to the National Portrait Gallery of Australia for £1.8m. There are also several outstanding works now at risk, including a Michelangelo drawing discovered at Castle Howard and Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Portrait of Omai.

The system for saving the most important works of art for the nation is failing because of a lack of funding, the committee that reviews export licences has warned in its 50th anniversary year.
Britain has lost, and will continue to lose, some of the most valuable parts of its heritage because museums and galleries find it so hard to match prices paid by foreign buyers, the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art said in its annual report.Frequently, only the cheapest items end up staying in Britain and very few works of art costing more than £1m are saved through the last-ditch opportunity offered by the so-called Waverley system started in 1953.Temporary export bans give institutions time to raise money. Theatre, film and television career: Has written more than 30 plays and films – recent highlights include: Close My Eyes (1992); The Tribe (1998); Talk of the City (1999); Perfect Strangers (2001); The Lost Prince, soon to be shown by the BBC. Family: Married to Sandy Welch; they have one son and one daughter. Education: Westminster School, London; studied history at King’s College, Cambridge, but gave up his degree in 1971 when his first play, A Day With My Sister, was staged at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. On the strength of The Lost Prince, the works of Stephen Poliakoff are most unlikely ever to be forgotten in the dusty archive of his nightmares.LIFE STORY Born: In Kensington, London, 1952, to Ina, an English actress, and Alexander, a Russian ?gr?ntrepreneur. In fact, the initiative came straight from Buckingham Palace, where the royals were more concerned for the future of their own icy institution, than they were for their own cousins.Similarly, although Poliakoff desists from drawing crude contemporary parallels, his latest drama exposes the cruelty that the institution of monarchy inflicts upon the individuals at its heart. Poliakoff brings to public attention the fact that the Windsor family persistently lied to the British people when they claimed – right up until the 1980s when historian Kenneth Rose established the truth – that it had been Lloyd George’s government that refused to offer sanctuary to the Romanov family.