Brazzi was born in Bologna to Adelmo and Maria (née Ghedini) Brazzi. He attended San Marco University[citation needed] in Florence, Italy, where he was raised from the age of four. He made his film debut in 1939.  He was propelled to international fame with his role in the English-language film Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), followed by the leading male role in David Lean’s Summertime (1955), opposite Katharine Hepburn. In 1958, he played the lead as Frenchman Emile De Becque in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. His other notable English-language films include The Barefoot Contessa (1954), The Story of Esther Costello (1957), Count Your Blessings (1959),The Light in the Piazza (1962), and The Italian Job (1969).  In 1940, Brazzi married baroness Lidia Bertolini (1921–1981) to whom he was married until her death in 1981. The couple had no children. In 1984, he married Ilse Fischer, a German national, who had been the couple’s housekeeper for many years. This marriage was also childless. However, he did father a son (born 24 July 1955) by a relationship with Llewella Humphreys, daughter of Murray Humphreys.  Brazzi died in Rome on Christmas Eve 1994, aged 78, from a neural virus.