Career Highlights: Rocco and His Brothers, Big Deal on Madonna Street, State of Siege
First Major Screen Credit: Poveri Ma Belli (1956)
Biography
The son of a marble mason, Renato Salvatori was able to launch a film career on the strength of his good looks and impressive physique. Active onscreen from 1952, he was most memorably cast in crime films, notably Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers. He was later a mainstay of such politically supercharged productions as Z (1968) and Quemada (aka Burn) (1969). Renato Salvatori was the husband of French actress Annie Girardot with whom he co-starred in Rocco and His Brothers. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
He started off handsomely as a romantic juvenile actor but after working with the powerful likes of directors Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica in the 1960s, turned into one of Italy's strongest characters actors of grim, harrowing drama.
He met French actress Annie Girardot on the set of the 1960 movieRocco and His Brothers and married her on 6 January 1962. In sharp contrast to their off-camera relationship, in the movie Salvatori played a boxer-turned-thug who viciously rapes Annie, who played a prostitute. They had a daughter, Giulia; later they separated but never divorced.