Marta Abba

Biography

Italian theater and film actress whose greatest fame came as actress and muse for the great Italian playwright Luigi Pirandello. After attending the Academy of Dramatic Film in Milan, and having participated in the company of the Teatro del Popolo, she was acclaimed for her work with Virgilio Talli in 1924, in Chekhov's "The Seagull. The following year Luigi Pirandello took her with him as his principal actress. She was the faithful interpreter of the great playwright's work, devoting herself for many years exclusively to his comedies, which were great successes due in part to her exuberant performances. Pirandello, whose wife was in a mental institution, seems to have fallen in love with Abba, though there is no indication she reciprocated his romantic feelings. For her, Pirandello wrote "Diana and Tuda", "The Wives' Friend," and "To Find Each Other." Among the non-Pirandellian texts that Abba interpreted are those of Dickens, Goldoni, D'Annunzio, Shaw, and, under the direction of Max Reinhart, Shakespeare. She also made successful tours abroad, in Paris, London, and especially in the United States, where she made her Broadway debut as the Grand Duchess Tatiana Petrovna in Robert Sherwood's play "Tovarich." In America, she married, in 1938, Severance Millikin of the wealthy steel family. They later divorced. Retired from the stage at the time of her marriage, she returned to live in Milan. She occasionally returned to the stage, in particular in a 1953 revival of Pirandello's plays. The only two films she made were commercial productions. They remain the only document of her art. She died in Milan, one day before her 88th birthday.