.::MARZO 2010::.

"What's in a name?" asks Shakespeare, giving the young, inexperienced Juliet this optimistic line: "That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet."
Numerous actors would disagree. Any performer who ever adopted a new professional identity, hoping that a more mellifluous moniker would bode well, has pondered the star-crossed influences of vowels and consonants. During the 1920s, for instance, an Englishman named Archibald Alexander Leach believed he would have a better career as "Cary Grant." In Iowa, a rugged-looking fellow christened Marion Robert Morrison thought he would sound more masculine in monosyllables as "John Wayne." Native Italians and Apulians, however, have rarely been monosyllabic. Even Hollywood's superb silent era "Sheik," born as Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi [1895-1926], advanced to Hollywood's heights on horseback trailing six sexy syllables as "Rudolph Valentino." Assuming the new surname, "Valentino" retained his exotic Mediterranean charm but, obviously, he chose a word much breezier and easier on the tongue than the mouthful of names his family had given him.
During the 1920s, when talent agents were looking to sign the next Valentino, a good-looking prospect appeared in Manhattan. Born on December 23, 1904 in Montecatini Alto, he arrived in America on the Rochambeau at age nine and a half. His family, importers of olive oil, settled in Seattle, Washington. But Guido Mazzoncini yearned for the lights of Broadway. Eventually, he established a residence in Greenwich Village at 8 East Eighth Street, around the corner from Washington Square Park, a neighborhood hospitable to Italians. Completely bi-lingual, the handsome six-footer with blue-gray eyes had an advantage: he could be cast in Italian-themed dramas such as "Curtain Call" (based on Eleanora Duse's affair with Gabriele D'Annunzio) as well as in numerous American roles that called for a leading man who spoke unaccented English. His looks and language skills also ushered him into high profile Shakespearean productions such as "The Merchant of Venice" [1928] at the Broadhurst Theatre on Broadway, and snagged for him the starring role in "Romeo and Juliet" at the Shakespeare Theatre in February 1933. By then, Juliet's line about "any other name" must have struck him as ironic since his choice of a stage name proved to be as "sweet" as a prickly pear studded with persistent thorns. What is in a name can be a dilemma. The name "Mazzoncini" did not seem suitable for the marquee. Maybe Guido, like other thespians before him, also wished to guard his family's privacy by adopting a different name. And so he became "Guido Nadzo," a stage name he decided on. By November 1925, he was using it when he co-starred on Broadway during the successful run of "A Lady's Virtue" at the Bijou Theatre on West 45th Street. Good reviews in The New York Times had blessed this comedy and attracted attendance. Fortune had smiled on 21-year-old Guido Nadzo − − or so it seemed. Within a few years, with several Broadway credits building his fame, he had also written plays that were made into films for actress Constance Bennett and others. On September 21, 1929 the budding star did a major newspaper interview for The White Plains Press: "Young Italian Actor at New Rochelle Varied in Career." To let the audience know more about the star of the new comedy by Winnie Baldwin, which would premiere at the New Rochelle Theatre prior to its New York mainstage opening at the Forrest [now renamed the Eugene O'Neill] Theatre on West 49th Street, a reporter sat down with the "young Italo-American actor who attracted the attention of even the most severe of New York critics when he appeared opposite Alice Brady in 'A Most Immoral Lady,' last season," and announced that Guido "has had quite an adventurous life." According to Guido, his "old and prominent Italian family" had hoped he would be a statesman, a diplomat, or a university professor. But at the end of a semester at the University of Bologna, he had pursued his own dreams, appearing onstage in Genoa, touring Italy with Nina di Carrara and Vera Vergana, and pressing forward to The Big Apple. "Unlike most foreign actors," the Westchester reporter wrote, "the English language has placed no obstacles in his way."
But there are many other hurdles in the path of a serious performing artist. It is inevitable, for example, that actors will be reviewed and that some critics will be harsh, unfair, or even blisteringly cruel and unkind. The unkindest cut of all may be the wordplay so clever that it takes on a life of its own. In 1965, for instance, Noel Coward, on the film set of "Bunny Lake is Missing," quipped, "Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow." As the witty phrase was often repeated, Mr. Dullea's career hopes dimmed and finally faded altogether. In 1927 drama critic George S. Kaufman suffered through a boring production; his frustration erupted in verbal swordplay. His review noted: "Guido Nadzo was nadzo guido [i.e., not so good]." Alas, this cheeky witticism was far too clever not to be repeated − − and so it was, over and over. Panning a Broadway play based on Eleanora Duse's love affair with a poet (played by Guido Nadzo), J.H. in The New York American scolded: "Ara Gerald has the Duse role, a part for which she is not entirely fitted." Borrowing from George S. Kaufman, J.H. added: "Her chief supporters are Michelette Burani, Selena Royle, Blaine Cordner, and Guido Nadzo . . . or, as a lobby wag put it, Nadzo Guido."
Unfortunately for actors, some of this razzing is revived in memoirs. In 1975, decades after he left his stage career behind, Guido Nadzo began writing imploring letters to publishers who released biographies that poked fun at him such as Ruth Gordon's "Myself Among Others" and George S. Kaufman's "Act One," etc. Tired of being ridiculed in these bestsellers, Guido wrote to the literary agent Scott Meredith, complaining that these recollections were misleading, one-sided, and inaccurate. In one letter, his plea to a publisher argued: "I have children, grandchildren, and friends who are not familiar with the actual record . . . and who are discomfited and anguished by such published inaccuracies."
For awhile it was believed that Guido Nadzo relinquished the spotlight rather than continue to be a punch line. But when researchers tracked down his living relatives, it seems the former actor weathered the criticism good-naturedly, and took a different path largely because the Great Depression and World War II presented new opportunities. In 1932 he wed Marian Sommers, an American girl whose father owned a theatre. They honeymooned in North Africa, where Guido made a film; this happy union produced three children. In 1943 he became a Foreign Service Officer, and later was employed by UNRRA [The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration]. Aided by his bi-lingual skills, he was the first UNRRA official to reach Italy in July 1944 − − months before the Germans surrendered in 1945. He served in Italy until 1954 and then became a housing adviser involved in public works, a career that took him and his family to Vietnam, Korea, Peru, Washington, DC, and other locales. When Guido retired in the 1970s, he and Marian devoted their energies to gardening, growing prized roses, and visiting grandchildren. And he also continued his vigorous letter writing campaign, beseeching publishers to remove passages that portrayed him as a loser. Before he died in 1988, he had some satisfaction knowing that the prickly paragraphs were removed from certain reprinted editions. But the calumny developed a new life online. A quick Internet search will reveal very little about Guido Nadzo − − except for the "Nadzo Guido" insult. By reading this article in L'Idea, you are among the privileged few who will know the real story.