Mimi Aguglia(1884-1970)
- Actress
Mimi Aguglia was born in Palermo, Sicily, on a theater stage in 1884,
when her mother, Giuseppina Aguglia, a famous Sicilian actress, was
playing Desdimona in
William Shakespeare's
"Othello". The newborn was named Giroloma in honor of her grandfather,
but everyone called her by her nick name: Mimi. Before she was four
years old, Mimi was singing and dancing as a warm-up act before her
mother's dramatic performances. By age 16 she was given supporting
roles and soon became a major leading lady. At 18 she met Baron
Vincenzo Ferrau, a Sicilian nobleman, and soon, against her parents'
wishes, Mimi and Vincenzo eloped. Together with her theatrical
colleagues, Angelo Musco and Giovanni Grasso, the first Sicilian
Theatrical Company was born, with Vincenzo as the producer. The company
began touring Italy, performing plays in the Sicilian dialect and
became so successful that they expanded their tour throughout Europe
and played command performances before heads of state, including the
Kings of Spain and England as well as the King of Croatia. Mimi became
one of the leading theatrical divas of her time and enjoyed the company
of such personages as international opera star
Enrico Caruso and the inventor of the
wireless telegraph (known more commonly as radio),
Guglielmo Marconi. She then began to
do plays in Spanish and English. Her international tours soon included
the US, Canada and Central and South America. In Mexico her company's
performance even created a cease-fire between revolutionary leader
Pancho Villa's forces and federal
troops during the Mexican revolution, so all could enjoy her
performance. While in New York, writer
Henry Miller saw her perform and
included a multi-page glowing critique of her work in one of his major
novels, "Plexus, the Rosy Cruisfixion". In 1945 Mimi became a
naturalized American citizen and expanded her work to include motion
pictures in the US, Italy and Mexico. She had three children, one of
whom, Argentina Brunetti, became a
leading American motion picture character actress and journalist. Mimi
continued to work as a character actress into her 80s. In 1970 she died
of a stroke at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills,
California.
