BIO

Pupella Maggio was born Giustina Maggio in Rome, Italy, in 1910.   One of five children, her family performed in a street theatre troupe run by her father.

Maggio made her first stage appearance at the age of two and only completed a few years of elementary school before re-joining her father’s troupe.

Following the deaths of her mother in 1940 and her father in 1943, she left acting for a period and worked in various jobs, including a hat shop and a steel mill, in Naples, Rome and Milan.   Maggio returned to Naples in 1954 and joined a local theatre troupe.

She appeared in her first Italian film in 1947, at the age of 37, but only began focusing on the genre in the late 1950s.   She appeared in more than 25 feature films and received a David di Donatello Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Cinema Paradiso (1988).

Her last movie was released in 2002.

Maggio married Luigi Dell’Isola in 1962, but the couple divorced in 1976.

She died of a stroke in Rome, in 1999, at the age of 89.

NOTED FILMS