Known above all for his great collaborations in the theater that led him to create great plays, here is the story of Turi Ferro, an all-round actor who has been able to adapt to the changes imposed on acting.
Who was Turi Ferro
Salvatore Ferro, known as Turi Ferro (Catania, 10 January 1921 – Sant’Agata li Battiati, 11 May 2001), was an Italian actor. Raised in a environment that promotes art, he is passionate about his father’s work and he too enters the world of acting. Start by performing first in small theaters staging works by authors such as Giovanni Verga and other Sicilian names, and then officially joining the theater company “Brigata D’Arte Di Catania”.
Under his father’s advice he does not immediately entrust his heart to the theater and decides to take the teaching diploma to get a good plan B. However, over time he realizes that acting is his only and true great passion so he retraces his steps. After the first performances at the Coppola Theater in Catania he manages to establish yourself in professional companies together with his wife Ida Carrara with whom he will later become part of the Compagnia Rosso di San Secondo.
Turi Ferro and the world of acting
However, taking a step back and then retracing the first steps taken in the sector, Ferro represents numerous works together with great minds in the industry. In fact, he works on the unfinished work of Luigi Pirandello called “The giants of the mountain” together with the great one Giorgio Strehler in 1947. There are numerous works that he chooses from the works of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934 and is the affinity between the characters described and his way of interpreting them is palpable then on the stage.
He also collaborates with i best actors on the Italian scene, especially when he manages to unite them under the one big project born from the collaboration between him and his wife. The two create in fact “Sicily Theater Organization” which sees the participation of Rosina Anselmi and Umberto Spadaro in the representation of the most famous short stories by Pirandello. The desire to exalt his land to the maximum is also expressed through the choice of the works of Leonardo Sciascia. In fact, it presents “Candido”, “Nero Su Nero”, “Il Giorno Della Civetta” and many other works.
Not just theater: Turi Ferro between cinema and television
In the following years it also recalls great Sicilian masterpieces like the stories by Giovanni Verga which include “Novelle Rusticane”, “I Malavoglia” and “Mastro Don Gesualdo”. However, he also interprets works from the novels of Brancati and Andrea Camilleri. Turi Ferro also boasts the direction of one of his plays at the theater, one of the few made by the director, by Roberto Rossellini.
Her collaboration with cinema it is rather scarce. Among the few films in which the actor participates are remembered “A man to burn” of 1961 by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, but also “I knew her well” alongside Nino Manfredi and Ugo Tognazzi. At the end of the 70s he took part in Salvatore Samperi’s feature film alongside Michele Placido and in 1981 he participated with Vittorio Gassman, Paolo Villaggio and others in the comedy “Il Turno”.
To crown his presence in any medium that hosts the acting is added his participation on television. In fact, he proposes some of his greatest theatrical pieces in the form of dramas, obviously including works by Sicilian authors.