Tennessee Williams wrote his play "The Rose Tattoo" with Anna in mind. She was offered the lead but turned it down because she felt her command of the English language was not strong enough for the demanding role of Serafina Delle Rose. Maureen Stapleton was critically acclaimed for her stage role. Anna, however, did accept the screen version when it was offered and won the Oscar, Golden Globe and New York Film Critics awards, among others.
Tennessee Williams wrote the role of Serafina in his play, The Rose Tattoo, for Anna, but her English skills were too limited to appear in the 1951 Broadway production. Instead, Maureen Stapleton played the role to great acclaim. Stapleton also would originate the role of Lady Torrance in Williams' Orpheus Descending, a role Magnani also would later play on film.
Tennessee Williams, after meeting her, said, "I never saw a more beautiful woman, enormous eyes, skin the color of Devonshire cream.".
A well-known hypochondriac, she constantly kept a thermometer close by in order to check her temperature.
Convinced that she would never win the Oscar for The Rose Tattoo (1955), she didn't attend the ceremony. The reporter who woke her out of a sound sleep in Rome to give her the news had a difficult time convincing her he wasn't kidding. "You're lying," Magnini supposedly said. "If this is a joke, I'll kill you!".
Grandmother of Italian actress Olivia Magnani.
Had an extremely tempestuous relationship with Roberto Rossellini beginning in 1944 and ended when he deserted her for Ingrid Bergman. She was known to have hurled crockery at him during their volatile times. In describing her, he reportedly stated that, "She was born carrying her liver in her teeth".
Her 1933 marriage to director Goffredo Alessandrini ended in 1940 but it was until 1950 that the marriage was annulled.
Her beloved son Luca was the result of a brief affair with Italian matinée idol Massimo Serato.
Her friendship with Tennessee Williams was the subject of an Off-Broadway play in New York, Roman Nights, by Franco D'Alessandro, which starred Franca Barchiesi as Magnani and Roy Miller as Williams. A film adaptation is in the works.
Her Italian mother Marina was a seamstress. Her father was Egyptian. While she briefly lived in Egypt as an infant she was raised by her grandparents in Rome, where she was born.
Her son, Cellino, the product of a torrid affair with actor Massimo Serato, was a victim of infantile polio and Anna sent him to a Swiss clinic for treatments. Although he could walk with braces, most of his life was spent in a wheelchair. She was awarded Italy's Golden Violet Award as an exemplary mother for her devotion.
Is portrayed by Lina Sastri in Celluloid (1995)
Sent to a convent school at the age of 7 where she learned French. She also was brought up musically, had a deep singing voice and could play the piano and guitar.
She and Roberto Rossellini always remained friends.
She was inconsolable after discovering she had pancreatic cancer. Her son Luca and director Roberto Rossellini, her one-time director and paramour, were at her beside at the time of her death in 1973. She was laid to rest in the Rossellini family vault.
Was extremely superstitious and claimed she was clairvoyant. She also smoked cigars.