Walter Annicchiarico (8 March 1924 – 20 December 1991), known as Walter Chiari [ˈvalter ˈkjaːri], was an Italian stage and screen actor, mostly in comedy roles.
Biography
Walter Annicchiarico was born in Verona, Italy on 8 March 1924 to a family originally from Apulia. During World War II, he joined the Decima Flottiglia MAS and was then drafted into the Wehrmacht (a detail that emerged only after his death). He was sent to a German anti-aircraft squad engaged in Northern France in Normandy where he was slightly wounded in the fighting during D-Day. Captured, he was taken to the American prisoner camp of Coltano.
In 1951, Luchino Visconti offered him the role of the young lover, in Bellissima; he continued in the theater, in the musical comedy with Delia Scala in 1956 with Buonanotte Bettina and in 1958 with Il gufo e la gattina, and in 1960 with Sandra Mondaini, Ave Ninchi and Alberto Bonucci with Un mandarino per Teo, all by Garinei and Giovannini, but also in the prose theater, acting in 1961 in The Gay Life, in 1965 with Gianrico Tedeschi in the comedy Luv by Murray Schisgal and, in 1966, with Renato Rascel in La strana coppia by Neil Simon.
During the making of The Little Hut, he met Ava Gardner (still married to Frank Sinatra but already estranged from him), and he started a relationship with the American superstar.
Chiari appeared in films such as The Little Hut (1957), Bonjour Tristesse (1958), Chimes at Midnight (1966) and The Valachi Papers (1972). He appeared opposite Anna Magnani in Luchino Visconti's film Bellissima (1951).
He starred in They're a Weird Mob (1966), the last of the Powell and Pressburger films, based on a popular Australian novel by John O'Grady. His then girlfriend, Italian singer and actress Alida Chelli, also appeared in the film; the two married in 1969, and had one son, television presenter Simone Annicchiarico, before their 1972 divorce. He also appeared in the Australian film Squeeze a Flower in 1970.
