Robert Rietti
| Robert Rietti | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Lucio Rietti 8 February 1923 Paddington, London, England |
| Died | 3 April 2015 (aged 92) London, England |
| Other names | Bobby Rietti, Robert Rietty |
| Occupation | Actor, director |
| Years active | 1933–2015 |
| Parent(s) |
Victor Rietti Rachel Rosenay |
| Relatives | Ronald Rietti (brother) |
Robert Rietti, born Lucio Rietti and usually credited as Robert Rietty (8 February 1923 – 3 April 2015), was an actor and director of Italian heritage. He was knighted by the Italian government.
Born in 1923, Rietti was the younger of two sons of the Italian actor Victor Rietti and Rachel Rosenay. In 1932, at the age of nine, he joined his father's company Teatro Italiano, making his stage debut in Mysterious Currents. His father (under whom Ida Lupino and June Duprez had studied acting) developed his son’s acting career under the name Bobby Rietti. He made his motion picture debut as Fattorino in Monty Banks' comedy Heads We Go (1933). He soon caught the eye of David O. Selznick, who offered him an extended film contract. Despite letting down Alfred Hitchcock, who handpicked him to play the lead in Sabotage (1936), he made 17 motion pictures during the 1930s, remaining a popular child actor throughout that decade. They would later work together in Hitchcock’s film Frenzy.
His successful career on the stage and in motion pictures was interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. At first he joined the Rifle Brigade, but accepted the army’s request for him to head “Stars in Battledress”, a group of young actors, which included the young Peter Ustinov and Terry-Thomas, who were flown throughout Europe to entertain the Allied troops. In 1945, he was invited by John Gielgud to join his production of Hamlet for troops in the Far East. After the war, he returned to work in the theatre, films, radio, and the latest medium, early television.
In radio, he teamed up with Orson Welles in the radio series The Third Man (1951), and then again on the popular series The Black Museum (1952), which was broadcast to the US Armed Forces. This was to be the beginning of many collaborations between Rietti and Orson Welles, who remained close friends. He was also a regular on the radio series Horatio Hornblower (1952) with Michael Redgrave, The Scarlet Pimpernel (1952), Theatre Royal (1954) with Sir Laurence Olivier, and the classic Sherlock Holmes (1954) with John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson.
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