Lamberto Maggiorani

Lamberto Maggiorani

Lamberto Maggiorani (28 August 1909 – 22 April 1983) was an Italian actor remembered for his portrayal of Antonio Ricci in the 1948 Vittorio De Sica film Bicycle Thieves.He was a factory worker (he worked as a turner) and a non-professional actor at the time he was cast in this film. He earned 600,000 lire ($1,000 US) for his performance, enabling him to buy new furniture and treat his family to a vacation; but when he returned to the factory he was laid off because business was slackening and management felt it would be fairer to terminate him instead of other impoverished co-workers since he was perceived to have "made millions" as a movie star. He found occasional work as a bricklayer, but continued to try to get roles in movies, with little success; even de Sica was reluctant to employ him as anything other than an extra. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Lamberto Maggiorani has received more than 136,935 page views. His biography is available in 18 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 17 in 2019). Lamberto Maggiorani is the 1,705th most popular actor (down from 1,540th in 2019), the 2,113th most popular biography from Italy (down from 2,044th in 2019) and the 60th most popular Italian Actor.