FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI

(12 February 1923 - 15 June 2019)

The opera, television and film director and designer Franco Zeffirelli, who has died aged 96, made his mark in all four art forms. The illegitimate son of a fashion designer and a cloth merchant who were both married to other spouses, Zeffirelli was apparently a descendent from the Leonardo da Vinci family. Perhaps his lineage produced in young Franco an artistic streak that set him up for the rest of his life. He studied art and architecture from 1941 at the University of Florence but during World War II he joined the British Army as an interpreter. Returning to his studies, he saw Laurence Olivier’s film of Henry V and decided on a career in the theatre. Italian director Luchino Visconti, with whom he had an affair, appointed him assistant director on La Terra Trema which influenced Zeffirelli’s work with Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini. Throughout his career he often designed his own stage productions and supervised the costumes. With his innate good taste, he made his productions both look and sound exceptional. From the mid-1960s he staged many operas for television, including La Bohème, Otello, Carmen, Turandot, Don Carlo, I Pagliacci, Don Giovanni, Aida, La Traviata and Madama Butterfly, plus seasons from the Metropolitan Opera.

Zeffirelli’s first cinema film as a director was Camping in 1958, but his first major production was The Taming of the Shrew (1967) with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor (Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni were not available), possibly the most successful Shakespeare film ever made – unless it was his next one, Romeo and Juliet (1968) with teenagers Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey which went global on account of the leading lady revealing her embonpoint. Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972) was a biopic on St Francis of Assisi with a young Graham Faulkner in the lead. Jesus of Nazareth (1977) was a miniseries with Robert Powell, while The Champ (1979) was a remake of an old boxing movie with Jon Voight and Ricky Schroder. Endless Love (1981) seemed like a modern version of Romeo and Juliet and La Traviata was the Verdi opera filmed on location with Plácido Domingo and Teresa Stratas. Domingo was also the lead in the Zeffirelli film of Otello.

Twenty-two-year old C. Thomas Howell played the title role in Young Toscanini with Elizabeth Taylor as an operatic diva, would you believe? Mel Gibson as the Prince of Denmark proved to be a good choice for Hamlet. In 1996 Zeffirelli tackled Jane Eyre with Charlotte Gainsbourg (Anna Paquin played the young Jane) with William Hurt as Rochester. Tea with Mussolini (1999) was based on events from Zeffirelli’s own childhood and starred Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Cher and Lily Tomlin. His last feature film was Callas Forever (2002) with Fanny Ardant, Jeremy Irons and Joan Plowright. Outside of the theatre and the cinema, Zeffirelli, an ultra-conservative Roman Catholic, was a member of Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing party from 1994 to 2001. Although he was gay (a word he hated because it was not ‘elegant’), he supported the Roman Catholic church in its anti-gay policy. He finally came out in 1996, which was no surprise to anyone, least of all the young actors who had accused him of sexual misconduct during filming. He had no children but ‘adopted’ two men in his employ. He received an honorary knighthood (KBE) by the UK in 2004. So, a great artist perhaps, but a less than perfect man.

MICHAEL DARVELL