Anna Magnani made her American film debut with The Rose Tattoo and Hollywood repaid her with a well deserved Oscar. If the role of Serafina Delle Rose seems to have been created with Magnani in mind, it was: Tennessee Williams wrote the original play for the actress, though at the time she felt too unsure of her English to appear on the American stage. In a small bayou town, Serafina, the widow of a banana-truck driver, wears widowhood like a mantle, living in remembered passions and stifling her own boisterous eccentricity as surely as she hopes to stifle the sexual curiosity of her adolescent daughter. Alvaro Manziacavallo (Burt Lancaster), a joyful lummox with a full heart and a full bottle, cajoles Serafina out of this morbid post-facto adoration, releasing her explosive emotions with his own. In his clumsy love, he determines to emulate the husband, rose tattoo and all. If the village idiot was a one-off role for Lancaster, Magnani's performance was unlike anything ever seen in an American film. Cinematographer James Wong Howe also took an Oscar.