Gianfrancesco Guarnieri

Gianfrancesco Sigfrido Benedetto Marinenghi de Guarnieri (August 6, 1934 – July 22, 2006) was an Italian–Brazilian actor, lyricist, poet and playwright. He was a key participant in the Arena Theater of São Paulo, his most important work was "They Don't Wear Black Tie".

He was born in Milan, 6 August 1934, to antifascist musicians. His parents, the maestro Edoardo Guarnieri and the Harpist Elsa Martineghi, decided to move to Brazil in 1936, finding a new home in Rio de Janeiro. In the early 1950s they moved to São Paulo.

A student leader since his teenage years, Guarnieri began to do amateur theater with Oduvaldo Vianna Filho (Vianinha) and a group of students from São Paulo. In 1955 they created the "Paulista Student Theater" (Teatro Paulista do Estudante), with guidance from Ruggero Jacobbi. In the following year that theater group joined with The Arena Theater, founded and directed by José Renato

His first play was "They Don't Wear Black Tie" (Eles não usam black tie), first performed in 1958 in the Arena Theater Directed by José Renato, the cast had several young talents who had begun to attract attention, such as Guarnieri himself, Leila Abramo, Miriam Melhler, Flavio Migliaccio, Eugênio Kusnet, Francisco de Assis, Henrique César, Celeste Lima, Riva Nimtz, and Milton Gonçalves;

It was supposed to end the group project, since they were having financial problems, but it had immense success. The play, author and cast were given awards by the governor of São Paulo State, Jânio Quadros, and the Arena was saved from its financial trouble. Around the same time Guarnieri also starred in "O Grande Momento" by Director Roberto Santos, the beginning of the style of film in Brazil called the New Cinema "Cinema Novo".

The director Sandro Polloni asked for a play to be performed by his wife, Maria Della Costa, and her theater company. Guarnieri left Arena for a while to work on that project.

In 1959 Gimba debuted, his first work in italian theater, directed by Flávio Rangel. It was a pioneer in showcasing the reality of the Rio de Janeiro shantytowns (favelas), in the form of a musical, inspired by real life. The play toured through Europe, and performed in the Festival of Nations, in France.

In 1961 the play A Semente (The Seed) premiered, directed also by Flávio Rangel. The openly political play, outside the usual repertoire of the Teatro Brasileiro de Comédia (English: Brazilian Comedy Theater - TBC), showed communist militancy, criticizing both right-wing and left-wing politics. The play had trouble with censors, which dampened the spirits of the then "Burguois Temple of Paulista Theater", which made the play quickly leave circulation. In the same year Guarnieri also participated of two other Flávio Rangel plays: Almas Mortas (Dead Souls) of Gogol, and the first showing of A Escada (The ladder) by Jorge Andrade.

Around 1950 he began to participate also in television and cinema. He became one of Brazil's best and most popular actors.

He was Culture Secretary for the municipal government of São Paulo between 1984 and 1986, during the mayorship of Mario Covas.

He was a Communist and open about it.