Piero Heliczer
1937-1993
DURING the very early 1960s a door opened briefly into the room of British poetry and for a while the air was breathable. Public readings by Michael Horovitz, Pete Brown, Adrian Mitchell, Libby Houston, Michael Shayer and many others gave energy and hope to a generation bored with verse that seemed without connection to their experience and surroundings. Among the poets from abroad whose contribution to this moment should not be forgotten were the Finnish- born Anselm Hollo, the American David Ball, and Piero Heliczer, who was tragically killed in a road-accident in Normandy two weeks ago. Heliczer was born in Rome on midsummer's eve, 1937. His mother was Jewish, from Prussia; his father Italian-Polish. Between the ages of four and six he was a child film-star ('Il Piccolo Tucci') after winning a contest for the most typical Italian boy in Rome. He acted with Alida Valli, and in Augusto Genina's Bengasi, which won first prize at Venice in 1942. After the war he was offered parts in Shoeshine, and Rome - Open City, but his mother 'didn't want me to play with the dirty kids from the streets'. The family was in hiding during the last two years of the war. For a time Piero was secre…
Films