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Rafaela
Ottiano:
The
Venetian who Played the Villainess
by
LindAnn Lo Schiavo
From
Times Square
on
August 7, 1928
, Joe Tarallo posted a card to his cousin Nick in
Nashville
,
Tennessee
. "Saw a Broadway play last night,” he wrote.
“Our cousin Rafaela Ottiano has a leading part. Diamond Lil is
a great show." Interestingly, he failed to mention that their
paesana portrayed the wicked one: Russian Rita, an aging trollop who is
stabbed to death by Mae West [as Lil].
Menace became a career. Though she occasionally paid the rent
with a minor role as a servant, Ottiano specialized in sinister,
spiteful characterizations onstage and onscreen.
Who was this hard-working actress, who distinguished herself on
The Great White Way and often impressed the critics with her presence in
44 films? Born in Venice of Italian parents on
March 4, 1888
, Rafaela Ottiano established herself on the Italian
stage before autographing the immigration registry at
Ellis Island
in 1910. By October 1912, the 24-year-old performer
won good notices when featured in a production of "Puss in Boots"
at Proctor's Fifth Avenue Theatre [31 West 28th Street (near Broadway),
New York
,
NY
]. In between
auditioning, rehearsing, and seeking stardom, Ottiano paid the rent by
toiling as a saleslady in a
Manhattan
department store. When the 1920 Census was taken,
the five-foot-five brunette gave her age as 25 — though she was 32
years old — perhaps because the
West 37th Street
rooming house where she hung her hat was peopled
with aspiring actresses and artists.
Unmarried and in fierce competition for roles with fresh-faced
beauties, the Venetian was determined not to give up. Nor was she eager
to embrace the suburban
New England
life her Italian parents had opted for when they
bought a house in
East Boston
,
Massachusetts
. Then Broadway beckoned.
Theatrical
manager H.H. Frazee, who had once owned the Longacre Theatre on
48th Street
, had renovated and modernized the old Harris
playhouse [
42nd Street
between Seventh and Eighth Avenues].
After renaming it the Frazee Theatre, the management was seeking
shows that would draw a crowd. They decided on an unusual double bill:
"Bombastes Furioso," an old operetta, along with a
melodrama often performed in
London
since its premiere in 1842 — "Sweeney Todd:
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street." Shakespearian-trained
British actor Robert Vivian took the starring role and Rafaela Ottiano
played Mrs. Lovett, whose infernal pie-shop thrives on Sweeney Todd's
victims. This adaptation of George Dibdin-Pitt's tale of murder and
cannibalism ran during the summer of 1924 for 67 performances. The role
guided her destiny.
Remembering
how evil she seemed in this villainous variation, casting directors
awarded Ottiano the supporting role opposite Mae West in Diamond Lil
[1928-1929] as well as for its
Hollywood
remake, She Done Him Wrong. The talented
Ottiano was the only Broadway cast member retained for the Mae West film
version in 1933. Two years later, in the horror masterpiece The Devil
Doll, Ottiano took the featured role of Malita opposite leading man
Lionel Barrymore. Brilliantly scary, Malita made clear her plans to
exploit her scientist husband's "miniaturization" process by
hissing malevolently, "We'll make the whole world small!"
A
second acclaimed Broadway turn — as Suzanne in Grand Hotel —
kept Ottiano busy for a full year from November 1930 until December
1931. When the drama set in
Berlin
was remade for the silver screen, Ottiano reprised
the Suzanne role, this time playing the over-protective maidservant of
ballerina Greta Garbo in 1932. The same year, she worked with Garbo
again in the film classic As You Desire Me, based on a play by
Luigi Pirandello. “Rafaela Ottiano served this picture with
distinction,” one critic noted.
And
another somewhat more benign portrayal was Ottiano’s part as Mrs.
Higgins, an orphan asylum’s overlord in Curly Top [1935], in
which her sour severity melts when exposed to the relentless cheeriness
of Elizabeth, a homeless moppet played by adorable Shirley Temple.
Guiding her career by herself,
Rafaela Ottiano managed to stay regularly employed in
Hollywood
from 1924 to 1942. Considering the fact that, for an
aging actress, there are not many meaty scene-stealing parts available,
she did her best to stay visible from her mid-thirties until her
mid-fifties. Her high-cheeked beauty appealed to many, including the
artist Allen Tucker [1866-1939], who painted a tall, narrow panel
portrait of her. But if there were any meaningful relationships in her
off-screen life, she kept this private. She never married and had no
children. After
filming her last two pictures, she flew back to the East Coast to be
treated for intestinal cancer at
Roosevelt
Hospital
in
Manhattan
.
The 54-year-old actress died in August 1942 at the
East
Boston
home of her late parents. Many of her films are available on DVD.
IDEA
MARZO 2007
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