Rome: Enzo Staiola, the Italian child actor immortalised as Bruno Ricci in Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 neorealist classic “Ladri di Biciclette” (Bicycle Thieves), has died at the age of 85, Reports Dynamite News correspondent. Italian newspaper La Repubblica first reported the news, though the cause of death remains undisclosed. According to the newspaper, he died on Tuesday.
Staiola was merely nine years old when he delivered a performance of remarkable restraint and emotional gravitas, portraying the wide-eyed, solemn son of an impoverished father in postwar Rome, reports Dynamite News correspondent.
Opposite Lamberto Maggiorani, himself a factory worker cast for his authenticity, Statiola’s solemn eyes and quiet resilience provided the emotional nucleus of De Sica’s humanist parable, which remains a touchstone of cinematic history. The movie tells the story of Antonio Ricci, a poor man who needs a bicycle to keep his job.
As the father and son transverse Rome in a desperate attempt to recover it, Statiola’s Bruno bears silent to the erosion of his father’s dignity, his expressive gaze embodying both innocence and a premature awareness of human frailty.
Born on November 15, 1939, in Rome, Staiola was discovered by De Sica in a moment of cinematic serendipity. Initially hesitant, his family eventually agreed to let him appear in the film after the director personally appealed to them.
As he recalled in a 2023 interview, De Sica noticed him walking home from school and was immediately struck by his presence. “I was coming back from school and at a certain point I noticed this big car following me at walking pace,” Staiola explained.
“Then this gentleman with gray hair, all dressed up, got out and asked me: ‘What’s your name?’, and I was silent. And he said: ‘But don’t you talk?’ ‘I don’t feel like talking,’ I replied. My mother always told me not to be too familiar if someone stopped us. But De Sica followed me home.
My parents recognised him right away. He was a famous actor. He sat at the table in our house and tried to convince them to let me act in his new film. But they didn’t want to.” Though he acted in a few more films in the 1950s, including “The Barefoot Contessa” with Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner, Staiola eventually left acting behind and became a mathematics teacher and a longtime clerk in a land registry office.
He went on to star in a few other movies, including Joseph L Mankeiwicz’s “The Barefoot Contessa” drama in 1954, which also starred Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner. His credits included 1950s Italian movies like “Hearts Without Borders”, “Vulcano”, “Guilt is Not Mine” and “A Tale of Five Women”. And he had a small part in 1977 in Flavio Mogherini’s “The Girl in the Yellow Pyjamas”.
“In the end, it was a real pain in the ass,” he told La Repubblica. “As a kid I could never play with my friends because if I made a mark on my face I couldn’t make movies anymore. Then it was also a bit boring, the times of cinema are very long.