Memory Lane
In the 1980s I taught at the British Institute in Rome.
One of my students was a young Luca Zingaretti, who would go on to play Inspector Montalbano in the longrunning eponymous TV drama series – based on the novels of Andrea Camilleri, who died in July, aged 93.
A little on the short and stocky side, Luca was sporting the almost entirely bald head that would go on to front so many fiendishly labyrinthine murder investigations … while he effortlessly inhabited the role of southern Sicily’s most eligible scapolo, or bachelor.
He came to my attention when he submitted a piece of homework about himself, written in the third person. Talking to him about his writing style, I learned he had ambitions to act.
Unbeknownst to me then, he’d already played in Shakespeare, Shaw and Chekhov, as well as securing his first film part. He had attended drama school in his native Rome after deciding against a career as a professional footballer in his teens. I confided in him that I found city life constraining and was missing playing football. He promptly fixed it for me to have a trial before I became the senior member of a team at their weekly training session.
He told me he’d done his military service in Verona. One night, he and a fellow conscript were out walking when an expensive car pulled up at the side of the road. The window opened and an attractive, glamorously dressed woman invited them to a party.
The car took them to a villa in a wealthy suburb, where they were greeted by the sights and sounds of people excitedly getting to know one another very well, with little regard to clothing conventions.
Luca ended the story with an Italian tour de force, hands raised in supplication and eyes rolling heavenward: ‘Dio mio! C’erano … Che cazzo! … Un’orgia!’
As his course came to an end, my girlfriend and I bought him a copy of Simon Callow’s
Being an Actor. I hope he found it useful – but I think he was already well on his way.
By Graham Elliott, who receives £50. Readers are invited to send in their own 400-word submissions about the past