Rafaela Ottiano

After establishing herself on the Italian stage, actress Rafaela Ottiano came to American films in 1924. During the talkie era, Ottiano specialized in sinister, spiteful characterizations. As aging trollop Russian Rita in She Done Him Wrong (1933), she meets her well-deserved end at the hands of Mae West, while in The Devil Doll (1935), she makes clear her plans to exploit her scientist husband's "miniaturization" process by hissing malevolently, "We'll make the whole world small!!!!" A somewhat more benign Rafaela Ottiano can be seen in Grand Hotel (1932), in which she plays the overprotective maidservant of ballerina Greta Garbo, and Curly Top (1935), in which her sour severity melts when exposed to the relentless cheeriness of Shirley Temple.