Overview
Walter Annicchiarico (8 March 1924 – 20 December 1991), known as Walter Chiari , was an Italian stage and screen actor, mostly in comedy roles.
Biography
Walter Annicchiarico was born in Verona, Italy on 8 March 1924 to a family originally from Apulia. During World War II he joined the Decima Flottiglia MAS, and then the Wehrmacht. Chiari appeared in films such as The Little Hut (1957), Bonjour Tristesse (1958), Chimes at Midnight (1966), and The Valachi Papers (1972). He appeared opposite Anna Magnani in Luchino Visconti's film Bellissima (1951).
In 1951 Luchino Visconti offered him the role of the young lover, in Bellissima; he continued in the theater, in the musical comedy with Delia Scala in 1956 with Buonanotte Bettina and in 1958 with Il gufo e la gattina, and in 1960 with Sandra Mondaini, Ave Ninchi and Alberto Bonucci with Un mandarino per Teo, all by Garinei and Giovannini, but also in the prose theater, acting in 1961 in The Gay Life, in 1965 with Gianrico Tedeschi in the comedy Luv by Murray Schisgal and, in 1966, with Renato Rascel in La strana coppia by Neil Simon.
During the making of The Little Hut he met Ava Gardner (still married to Frank Sinatra but already estranged from him), and he started a relationship with the American superstar.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).