Rossano Brazzi

Rossano Brazzi (18 September 1916 – 24 December 1994) was an Italian actor, director and screenwriter. He was known for playing roles that typified the suave, romantic leading man archetype, both in his native country and in Hollywood. Brazzi trained as a stage actor and was a matinee idol of Italian cinema, before moving to Hollywood in the early 1950s. He was propelled to international fame with his role in the English-language film Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), followed by leading male roles in David Lean's Summertime (1955), opposite Katharine Hepburn, as well as in the film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific (1958). His other notable English-language films include The Barefoot Contessa (1954), The Story of Esther Costello (1957), opposite Joan Crawford, Count Your Blessings (1959), Light in the Piazza (1962), and The Italian Job (1969). He also wrote and directed several films in his native Italy, sometimes using the pseudonym Edward Ross.