Roberto Rossellini - Early Life

Early Life

Rossellini was born in Rome. His mother, Elettra (née Bellan), was a housewife, and his father, Angiolo Giuseppe "Beppino" Rossellini, owned a construction firm. His mother was of part French descent, from immigrants who had arrived in Italy during the Napoleonic Wars. He lived on the Via Ludovisi, where Benito Mussolini had his first Roman hotel in 1922 when Fascism obtained power in Italy.

Rossellini's father built the first cinema in Rome (Barberini's), granting his son an unlimited free pass; the young Rossellini started frequenting the cinema at an early age. When his father died, he worked as a soundmaker for films and for a certain time he experienced all the accessory jobs related to the creation of a film, gaining competence in each field. Rossellini had a brother, Renzo, who later scored many of his films.

On 26 September 1936, he married Marcella De Marchis (17 January 1916, Rome – 25 February 2009, Sarteano), a costume designer. This was after a quick annulment from Assia Noris, a Russian actress who worked in Italian films. De Marchis and Rossellini had two sons: Marco Romano (born 3 July 1937 and died of appendicitis in 1946), and Renzo (born 24 August 1941). Rossellini and De Marchis separated in 1950 (and eventually divorced). Although he wasn't personally religious, he had a strong interest in Christian values in the contemporary world, and loved the Church's ethical teaching, and was enchanted by religious sentiment—things which he saw as being neglected in the materialist world.