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Rita Sacchetto

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Rita Sacchetto
Rita Sacchetto, from a 1909 publication
Born
Margherita Sacchetto

15 January 1880
Munich, German Empire
Died18 January 1959 (aged 79)
Nervi, Italy
Occupation(s)Dancer, actress, screenwriter
Years active1905–1924
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1917, divorced)​

Margherita "Rita" Sacchetto (15 January 1880 – 18 January 1959) was a German dancer, film actress, and screenwriter.

Early life

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Margherita Sacchetto was born in Munich, in what was then the German Empire, on 15 January 1880. Her father was from Venice, and her mother was Austrian. She trained as a dancer in Munich.[1][2]

Career

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Rita Sacchetto 1911 - Lino Selvatico
Rita Sacchetto, from a 1909 publication.

Sacchetto made her debut in 1905 at the Munich Künstlerhaus.[3] Gustav Klimt and Koloman Moser designed the sets for her performance in 1906.[4] She toured internationally from 1908 to 1910 with dancer Loie Fuller,[5] including a show at the Metropolitan Opera in 1910,[1][6] and a dance about women's suffrage set to the music of Edvard Grieg, performed at the New Theatre, also in 1910.[7] She also ran a dance school in Berlin from 1916 to 1918,[8] with students including Rahel Sanzara, Anita Berber, Hansi Burg, and Valeska Gert.[9] Among her neighbors in Berlin was the scientist, Max Born, who recalled her as "a very beautiful woman" with "dazzling" students.[10]

She was known for developing a style called tanzbilder, which involved novel dance interpretations of great works of art, with remarkable costumes designed by Sacchetto herself.[11][12] Caroline V. Kerr of Theatre magazine described Sacchetto in 1909 as "wholly human, of fascinating naiveté, captivating in her exuberance of temperament, in her grace and charm."[13] Ben Ali Haggin painted Sacchetto's portrait in one of her best-known costumes, titled "En Crinoline".[14] At the peak of her dance career, she was a frequent guest of European royalty, including Queen Margherita of Savoy, Nicholas II of Russia's family, and Alfonso XIII of Spain.[15]

She appeared in several Danish and German silent films,[16] under contract to Nordisk Film,[17] between 1913 and 1917.[18] In the United States, she was known for her appearance in The Ghost of the White Lady (1914),[19] and In the Line of Duty (1914).[20] She wrote one film, En Død i Skønhed (1915), in which she also appeared.

In 1924, Sacchetto was accidentally shot in the foot by one of her husband's friends. This resulted in her retiring to Poland.[21]

Personal life

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At age 37, Rita Sacchetto married the 24-year-old Polish nobleman and sculptor August Zamoyski on 5 May 1917, becoming the first of his four wives.[22] Sacchetto died in 1959, in Nervi, Italy, three days after her 79th birthday.

References

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  1. ^ a b Emily M. Burbank, "Rita Sacchetto" Putnam's Magazine (November 1909): 186-191.
  2. ^ Caroline Caffin, Dancing and Dancers of Today (Dodd, Mead & Company 1912): 214-228.
  3. ^ "Dance Pictures: The Cinematic Experiments of Anna Pavlova and Rita Sacchetto". www.screeningthepast.com. Retrieved Jul 13, 2020.
  4. ^ Edward Ross Dickinson, Dancing in the Blood: Modern Dance and European Culture on the Eve of the First World War (Cambridge University Press 2017): 77. ISBN 9781107196223
  5. ^ Rhonda K. Garelick, Electric Salome: Loie Fuller's Performance of Modernism (Princeton University Press 2009): 126. ISBN 9781400832774
  6. ^ "Loie Fuller Shows her Dancing Girls" New York Times (December 1, 1909): 7. via ProQuest
  7. ^ "Incarnating Woman Suffrage in a Dance" New York Times (May 22, 1910): SM8. via ProQuest
  8. ^ Karl Toepfer, Empire of Ecstasy: Nudity and Movement in German Body Culture, 1910-1935 (University of California Press 1997): 235-237. ISBN 9780520918276
  9. ^ Valeska Gert, Je suis une sorcière: kaléidoscope d'une vie dansée (Editions Complexe 2004): 259. ISBN 9782804800048
  10. ^ Max Born, My Life: Recollections of a Nobel Laureate (Routledge 2014). ISBN 9781317699279
  11. ^ Mary Simonson, "Dancing Pictures: Rita Sacchetto’s Tanzbilder" in Body Knowledge: Performance, Intermediality, and American Entertainment at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Oxford Scholarship Online 2014). ISBN 9780199898015
  12. ^ "Spanish Dancing" New York Times (May 1, 1910): XX3. via ProQuest
  13. ^ "Rita Sacchetto: Munich's Famous Dancer" The Theatre (December 1909): 172-173.
  14. ^ Gardner Teall, "Ben Ali Haggin, Painter of Portraits" Hearst's (November 1916): 308.
  15. ^ "Coryphee Given Royalty Praise at Many Courts" Inter Ocean (17 November 1912): 13. via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  16. ^ "Rita Sacchetto To Appear in Films" Evening Sun (29 September 1913): 7. via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  17. ^ Isak Thorsen, Nordisk Films Kompagni 1906-1924, Volume 5: The Rise and Fall of the Polar Bear (Indiana University Press 2017): 123. ISBN 9780861969302
  18. ^ Mary Simonson, "Dance Pictures: The Cinematic Experiments of Anna Pavlova and Rita Sacchetto" Screening the Past (August 2015).
  19. ^ "A Feature that Charms" Moving Picture World (January 17, 1914): 276.
  20. ^ "Noted Italian Actress in Military Drama" Dayton Herald (April 25, 1914): 9. via Newspapers.comOpen access icon
  21. ^ "European Film Star Postcards: Rita Sacchetto". Jun 26, 2013. Retrieved Jul 13, 2020.
  22. ^ Piotr Szubert, "August Zamoyski" Culture.pl.
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