Top 200 Italian Actresses
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- Lydia De Roberti is known for Nerone e Agrippina (1914), The Last Days of Pompeii (1908) and Bianco contro negro (1913).
- Mirra Principi was born on 26 December 1871 in Locarno, Switzerland. She is known for Galileo, Inventor of the Pendulum (1909), Louis the XI (1909) and The Queen of Ninevah (1911).
- She began acting in theater productions at a young age. Her first film was in 1906 for "Cines" of Rome, in what is considered the first film adaptation of Shakespeare's "Otello", directed by Mario Caserini, her husband. She was the interpreter of "Romeo e Giulietta" in 1908 and then in other thirteen films until 1909. One of these films was "Macbeth", directed by her husband. From 1910 to 1927 she starred in 65 films, many of which are always directed by her husband, as "Lucrezia Borgia", whose interpretation gave her more notoriety. Filming theatrical activity immediately after leaving the film career.
- Fernanda Negri Pouget was born on 28 March 1889 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She was an actress, known for The Last Days of Pompeii (1913), Hamlet (1908) and Ma non è una cosa seria (1921). She was married to Armand Pouget. She died on 17 February 1955 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
- Italia Almirante-Manzini was born on 3 June 1890 in Taranto, Puglia, Italy. She was an actress, known for Hedda Gabler (1920), Ironie della vita (1917) and La piccola parrocchia (1923). She was married to Amerigo Manzini. She died on 15 September 1941 in São Paulo, Brazil.
- Lidia Quaranta was born on 6 March 1891 in Turin, Italy. She was an actress, known for Beffa di Satana (1915), Lo scrigno dei milioni (1914) and La corsa alla morte (1917). She died on 5 March 1928 in Turin, Italy.
- Lyda Borelli was born on 22 March 1884 in Rivarolo Ligure, Genoa, Liguria, Italy. She was an actress, known for Malombra (1917), Satan's Rhapsody (1917) and Love Everlasting (1914). She was married to Vittorio Cini di Monselice. She died on 1 June 1959 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
- Pauline Polaire was born on 30 June 1904 in Ravenna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. She was an actress, known for Maciste in Hell (1925), Le dernier pardon (1913) and La dame de Monsoreau (1913). She died on 11 February 1986 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
- Born in Trieste, Franca started her career winning a beauty contest, "Miss Trieste", in 1927. Eager to pursue a film career, Franca moved to Turin, where she tried without success, and finally moved to Rome where she started her brief career. She debuted in 1930 with the short film Arietta Antica, and then starred in Resurrection by Alessandro Blasetti, the first Italian sound film, thus becoming the first Italian actress to have spoken in a film. Franca is best known for the role of Mariuccia in Mario Camerini's What Scoundrels Men Are!, starred alongside Vittorio De Sica; at the height of her success, Franca decided to marry the film director Mario Sequi, retiring from cinema.
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Isa Miranda was one of the most significant actresses in Europe from the 1930s-'50s. Her remarkable talent expressed itself both in cinema and theater. She reached international popularity in the 1930s, especially in France, Germany and Austria, and became the only international movie star produced by the fascist cinema. In the 1950s, when her film career began declining, she played on stage in Italy, the US ("Mike McCauley", 1951), France ("Le serpent à sonettes", 1953) and England ("Orpheus Descending" by Tennessee Williams, 1959), receiving positive reviews everywhere. In the 1960s she started a TV career in England, appearing in many made-for-TV movies. She was a versatile actress, exceedingly sensible, a charming woman, and unjustly forgotten at the end of her life even by those who should have remembered her.- Actress
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Tatyana Pavlova was born on 10 December 1890 in Yekaterinoslav, Russian Empire [now Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine]. She was an actress and director, known for Creature della notte (1934), Black Magic (1949) and Everybody's Woman (1934). She died on 7 November 1975 in Grottaferrata, Lazio, Italy.- Germana Paolieri was born on 29 August 1906 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. She was an actress, known for The Dream of Butterfly (1939), The Life of Giuseppe Verdi (1938) and La Wally (1932). She was married to Tramarallo, Piero. She died on 8 August 1998 in Montecatini, Tuscany, Italy.
- She was born in Buenos Aires with the name of Maria Esther Beomonte in 1916. She moved to Italy when she was 16 years old and she started her career with the movie "L'arcobaleno" ("The rainbow"). She very quickly became one of the most popular and successful actresses of the 30s and the 40s, she was the prototype of the typical girl of Rome's bourgeoisie and she worked with the most important Italian directors of her time (Alessandro Blasetti, Mario Camerini, Ferdinando Maria Poggioli, etc.). In the 50s she left the big screen and she became an appreciated internal decorator. She released an autobiography at the end of the 90s. Maria Denis died the 15th of April 2004 in Rome.
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Elisa Cegani was born on 10 June 1911 in Turin, Piedmont, Italy. She was an actress and costume designer, known for Ma non è una cosa seria (1936), Un giorno nella vita (1946) and Eleonora Duse (1947). She died on 23 February 1996 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Luisa Ferida started as a stage actress and first appeared in films with La Freccia d'oro (1935) in a supporting role but because of her photogenic looks and talent as an actress, she soon graduated to leading parts at the end of the thirties. In 1939, whilst working on An Adventure of Salvator Rosa (1939) directed by the celebrated Alessandro Blasetti, she met Osvaldo Valenti. The pair became romantically involved and had a son. Valenti had been linked with many Fascist officials and personalities for years, and this is the reason why he featured on the partisans' hit list. He was finally arrested in Milan, alongside a pregnant Ferida in April 1945. They were both sentenced to be executed and shot immediately in the street.
- Adriana Benetti was born on 5 December 1919 in Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. She was an actress, known for C'è sempre un ma! (1943), The Bigamist (1942) and Sins of Pompeii (1950). She died on 24 February 2016 in Rome, Italy.
- Clara Calamai was born on 7 September 1909 in Prato, Tuscany, Italy. She was an actress, known for L'adultera (1946), Deep Red (1975) and Obsession (1943). She was married to Leonardo Bonzi. She died on 21 September 1998 in Rimini, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.
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Dhia Cristiani was born on 27 June 1921 in Dovadola, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. She was an actress, known for Obsession (1943), Sissignora (1942) and Via delle cinque lune (1942). She was married to Giuseppe Ventriglia. She died on 17 July 1977 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Carmela Sazio is known for Paisan (1946) and La gran obsesión (1955).
- Vivi Gioi was born on 2 January 1914 in Leghorn, Tuscany, Italy. She was an actress, known for Tragic Hunt (1947), Ma non è una cosa seria (1936) and The Verona Trial (1963). She died on 27 July 1975 in Fiumicino, Lazio, Italy.
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Lianella Carell was born on 6 May 1927 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She was an actress and writer, known for Bicycle Thieves (1948), Carnal Circuit (1969) and Amore e guai (1958). She died on 19 December 2000 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Elena Altieri was born on 7 July 1910 in Stresa, Piedmont, Italy. She was an actress, known for Bicycle Thieves (1948), L'angelo bianco (1943) and Oro nero (1942). She died in 1997.
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Enigmatic, dark-haired foreign import Alida Valli was dubbed "The Next Garbo" but didn't live up to postwar expectations despite her cool, patrician beauty, remote allure and significant talent. Born in Pola, Italy (now Croatia), on May 3, 1921, the daughter of a Tridentine journalist and professor and an Istrian homemaker, she studied dramatics as a teen at the Motion Picture Academy of Rome and Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia before snaring bit roles in such films as Il cappello a tre punte (1935) ["The Three-Cornered Hat"] and I due sergenti (1936) ["The Two Sergeants"]. She made a name for herself in Italy during WWII playing the title role in Manon Lescaut (1940), won a Venice Film Festival award for Piccolo mondo antico (1941) ["Little Old World"] and was a critical sensation in We the Living (1942) ["We the Living"]. She briefly abandoned her career, however, in 1943, refusing to appear in what she considered fascist propaganda, and was forced into hiding. The next year she married surrealist painter/pianist/composer Oscar De Mejo. They had two children, and one of them, Carlo De Mejo, became an actor. She divorced in 1955, then she came back to Italy,
Following her potent, award-winning work in the title role of Eugenie Grandet (1946), she was discovered and contracted by David O. Selznick to play the murder suspect Maddalena Paradine in Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947). She was billed during her Hollywood years simply as "Valli," and Selznick also gave her top femme female billing in Carol Reed's classic film noir The Third Man (1949), but for every successful film--such as the ones previously mentioned--she experienced such failures as The Miracle of the Bells (1948), and audiences stayed away. In 1951 she bid farewell to Hollywood and returned to her beloved Italy. In Europe again, she was sought after by the best directors. Her countess in Luchino Visconti's Senso (1954) was widely heralded, and she moved easily from ingénue to vivid character roles. Later standout films encompassed costume dramas as well as shockers and had her playing everything from baronesses to grandmothers in such films as Eyes Without a Face (1960) ["Eyes Without a Face"], Le gigolo (1960), Oedipus Rex (1967) ["Oedipus Rex"], The Big Scare (1974), 1900 (1976), Suspiria (1977), Luna (1979), Inferno (1980), Aspern (1982), A Month by the Lake (1995) and, her most recent, Angel of Death (2001).- Actress
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At 15, while she was studying foreign languages and modern dance, she started attending the Italian school for performing arts, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia of Rome. The director Vittorio De Sica chose her for her debut role in "Maddalena, zero in condotta". At 19, she met her future husband, the director Alberto Lattuada, 11 years her senior, who chose her for a role in a movie taken from the renowned novel "Gli indifferenti", by Alberto Moravia. The movie was never realized, but they eventually married a few months later, in the month of April, 1945. In the 50s she took part mainly in theatre plays, and afterwards some TV fictions. She also founded a co-op with her husband, the director Federico Fellini and his wife Giulietta Masina: together they realized Fellini's debut movie: "Luci del varietà" (1950).- Tina Apicella was born on 2 February 1946 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for Bellissima (1951).
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Emma Gramatica was born on 25 October 1874 in Borgo San Donnino, Emilia-Romagna, Italy [now Fidenza]. She was an actress and writer, known for La damigella di Bard (1936), Miracle in Milan (1951) and L'angelo bianco (1943). She died on 8 November 1965 in Ostia, Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Actress
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Maria-Pia Casilio (5 May 1935 - 10 April 2012) was an Italian film actress, best known for her roles in "Umberto D". and "Un americano a Roma". Born in San Pio delle Camere, L'Aquila, Casilio was pretty active between 1952 and 1960, usually with the typical characterization of a querulous and naive small-town girl, then, after her marriage with the voice actor Giuseppe Rinaldi, she semi-retired from acting. On the Criterion Collection DVD release of "Umberto D". Vittorio De Sica comments she was a lucky charm to have her in his films.- Brunella Bovo was born on 8 March 1930 in Ponso, Veneto, Italy. She was an actress, known for The White Sheik (1952), 10 canzoni d'amore da salvare (1962) and The Loves of Salammbo (1960). She died on 21 February 2017 in Rome, Italy.
- Lina Gennari was born on 22 March 1911 in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. She was an actress, known for Umberto D. (1952), Napoli verde-blu (1935) and The Sign of Venus (1955). She died on 11 October 1997 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
- Ileana Simova is known for Umberto D. (1952) and Revenge of Black Eagle (1951).
- Nada Fiorelli was born on 17 August 1919 in Pescara, Abruzzo, Italy. She was an actress, known for Les miracles n'ont lieu qu'une fois (1951), The Golden Coach (1952) and Marcella (1937). She was married to Giorgio Ferroni. She died on 16 September 1984 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
- Yvonne Sanson was born on 29 August 1925 in Thessaloniki, Central Macedonia, Greece. She was an actress, known for The Conformist (1970), Chains (1949) and Nobody's Children (1951). She died on 23 July 2003 in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.A Greek-Italian actress
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Gina Lollobrigida was born on July 4, 1927 in Subiaco, Italy. Destined to be called "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", Gina possibly had St. Brigid as part of her surname. She was the daughter of a furniture manufacturer, and grew up in the pictorial mountain village. The young Gina did some modeling and, from there, went on to participate successfully in several beauty contests. In 1947, she entered a beauty competition for Miss Italy, but came in third. The winner was Lucia Bosè (born 1931), who would go on to appear in over 50 movies, and the first runner-up was Gianna Maria Canale (born 1927), who would appear in almost 50 films. After appearing in a half-dozen films in Italy, it was rumored that, in 1947, film tycoon Howard Hughes had her flown to Hollywood; however, this did not result in her staying in America, and she returned to Italy (her Hollywood breakout movie would not come until six years later in the John Huston film Beat the Devil (1953)).
Back in Italy, in 1949, Gina married Milko Skofic, a Slovenian (at the time, "Yugoslavian") doctor, by whom she had a son, Milko Skofic Jr. They would be married for 22 years, until their divorce in 1971. As her film roles and national popularity increased, Gina was tagged "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World", after her signature movie Beautiful But Dangerous (1955). Gina was nicknamed "La Lollo", as she embodied the prototype of Italian beauty. Her earthy looks and short "tossed salad" hairdo were especially influential and, in fact, there's a type of curly lettuce named "Lollo" in honor of her cute hairdo. Her film Come September (1961), co-starring Rock Hudson, won the Golden Globe Award as the World's Film Favorite. In the 1970s, Gina was seen in only a few films, as she took a break from acting and concentrated on another career: photography. Among her subjects were Paul Newman, Salvador Dalí and the German national soccer team.
A skilled photographer, Gina had a collection of her work "Italia Mia", published in 1973. Immersed in her other passions (sculpting and photography), it would be 1984 before Gina would grace American television on Falcon Crest (1981). Although Gina was always active, she only appeared in a few films in the 1990s. She retired from acting in 1997 after 50 years in the motion picture industry. In June 1999, she turned to politics and ran, unsuccessfully, for one of Italy's 87 European Parliament seats, from her hometown of Subiaco. Gina was also a corporate executive for fashion and cosmetics companies. As she told Parade magazine in April 2000: "I studied painting and sculpting at school and became an actress by mistake". (We're glad she made that mistake). Gina went on to say: "I've had many lovers and still have romances. I am very spoiled. All my life, I've had too many admirers."- Actress
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Marisa Merlini was born on 6 August 1923 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She was an actress, known for The Great Silence (1968), Tempo di villeggiatura (1956) and Bread, Love and Dreams (1953). She died on 27 July 2008 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Actress
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Anna Proclemer was born on 30 May 1923 in Trento, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy. She was an actress, known for Journey to Italy (1954), Illustrious Corpses (1976) and L'idiota (1959). She was married to Vitaliano Brancati. She died on 25 April 2013 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Actress
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Rossana Podestà was born on 20 June 1934 in Zliten, Murqub, Libya. She was an actress and director, known for Helen of Troy (1956), Ulysses (1954) and Le ragazze di San Frediano (1955). She was married to Marco Vicario. She died on 10 December 2013 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Actress
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Lucia Bosè was born on 28 January 1931 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. She was an actress, known for The Lady Without Camelias (1953), Death of a Cyclist (1955) and Story of a Love Affair (1950). She was married to Luis Miguel Dominguín. She died on 23 March 2020 in Segovia, Segovia, Castilla y León, Spain.- Bruna Corrà was born on 29 November 1933 in Trento, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy. She was an actress, known for Death of a Cyclist (1955), Carovana di canzoni (1955) and Viva la rivista! (1953). She died on 3 March 2015 in Trento, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy.
- She never found the international cross-over fame destined for Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida, and most American audiences would not recognize her name, but voluptuous, visually stunning Eleonora Rossi Drago certainly made male hearts pulsate in Europe with her scores of princesses and temptresses throughout Italian cinema of the 1950s and 1960s. She eventually earned respect as a fine actress and elevated her status in the films of Luigi Comencini and Michelangelo Antonioni, among others. But for the most part, she gamely played the sex card in a career that stretched a bit past two decades.
She was born Palmira Omiccioli (some sources also list Palmina as her first name, near Genoa, Italy (Columbus' birthplace) on September 23, 1925, the daughter of a sea captain. She married at the age of 17 and bore a daughter Fiorella but the marriage (to a gentleman named Rossi) did not last. She then found work as a department store mannequin and began actually designing couture clothing herself. An arresting beauty, she started competing in beauty contests and wound up in fourth place in the "Miss Italy" pageant. Gina Lollobrigida came in third. The attention lured her to films.
She moved to Rome and in 1949 began receiving small movie roles while using her married name of Rossi. Her first two big breaks came with Behind Closed Shutters (1951) [Behind Closed Shutters] with Massimo Girotti, a melodrama about prostitution, and the highly controversial Sensualita (1952) [Sensuality] in which Marcello Mastroianni and Amedeo Nazzari violently quarrel over her affections. The earlier picture was directed by Luigi Comencini and considered a strong success. The highly impressed Comencini went on to cast Eleonora as a female lead in his next film La tratta delle bianche (1952) [The White Slave Trade or Girls Marked for Danger], another tawdry melodrama about prostitution that co-starred Vittorio Gassman and also showcased the up-and-coming Sophia Loren.
It was obvious that Rossi-Drago had the makings of a bosomy sex goddess but she constantly strove to better her acting reputation in classier material. In 1955 she won critical notice on stage as Helena in Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" opposite Marcello Mastroianni as Astrov. Her finest hour in films came about that same year with the release of Antonnini's The Girlfriends (1955) [The Girlfriends], in which she starred in the rags-to-riches story of a humble girl who becomes a respected owner of a fashion salon and the social class struggle therein. Among her other standout roles in the 1950s were Kean: Genius or Scoundrel (1957), again opposite Vittorio Gassman, who also directed, and the award-winning Italian/French co-production Violent Summer (1959), in which she played a married woman approaching middle age who surrenders herself to a younger man (Jean-Louis Trintignant) during the summer of '43 and height of fascism. The film earned her the "Silver Ribbon" award, voted for by Italian film journalists, and the "best actress" award at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina.
In order to work continuously, however, she was forced to take on provocative roles of lesser quality -- roles that usually emphasized her physical attributes or enhanced the scenery around her. While Sophia Loren had a Carlo Ponti to promote her internationally, Rossi-Drago was less fortunate. By the 1960s she was relegated to such unmemorable adventures, horrors and sword-and-sand spectacles as David and Goliath (1960) [David and Goliath] with Orson Welles playing King Saul; The Carpet of Horror (1962) [The Carpet of Horror]; and Sword of the Conqueror (1961) [Sword of the Conqueror] opposite a raping and pillaging Jack Palance. Elsewhere, she was pretty much overlooked in the epic ensemble as Lot's wife in John Huston's mammoth failure The Bible in the Beginning... (1966).
Things did not improve into the decade and after appearing with Helmut Berger in the critically-panned retelling of Dorian Gray (1970) and Pier Angeli in the pedestrian Sergio Bergonzelli giallo In the Folds of the Flesh (1970) [In the Folds of the Flesh], she decided to call it quits. Blending back inconspicuously into mainstream society, she married Sicilian businessman Domenico La Cavera in 1973, and eventually retired to Palermo, Italy. She died at age 82 of a brain hemorrhage on December 2, 2007, and was survived by her second husband and daughter. - Actress
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Born in San Giorgio di Piano, Giulietta Masina spent part of her teenage years living with a widowed aunt in Rome, where she cultivated a passion for the theater and studied for a degree in Philosophy. She began her career on the radio with the program "Terzoglio" (1942), about the adventures of newlyweds Cico and Pallina from scripts written by Federico Fellini. The series brought her great success. The following year she married Fellini and became the inspirational muse for many of his films.
She made her cinema debut in Without Pity (1948), directed by Alberto Lattuada, but really established her reputation with her next few films: Behind Closed Shutters (1951), directed by Luigi Comencini, Variety Lights (1950), which also marked Fellini's debut as director (the film credits both Fellini and Lattuada); and Europe '51 (1952), directed by Roberto Rossellini. Her artistic partnership with her husband really took off with the Oscar-winning The Road (1954), followed by The Swindle (1955) and the widely acclaimed Nights of Cabiria (1957), which again won an Oscar and brought her the award for Best Female Performance at the Cannes Film Festival. Over the following years she played many memorable roles in such films as Fortunella (1958), directed by Eduardo De Filippo; ...and the Wild Wild Women (1959), directed by Renato Castellani; and later in Juliet of the Spirits (1965) and Ginger & Fred (1986), both directed by Fellini.
From 1966 to 1969 she hosted the immensely popular radio show "Lettere aperte a Giulietta Masina" and starred in the television series Eleonora (1973), by Tullio Pinelli, directed by Silverio Blasi, and Camilla (1976), directed by Sandro Bolchi, based on the novel by Fausta Cialente, "Un inverno freddissimo" (1966).
She died in Rome in 1994, just a few months after the death of her husband.- Actress
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Dorian Gray was born on 2 February 1931 in Bolzano, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy. She was an actress, known for Nights of Cabiria (1957), Mogli pericolose (1958) and Totò, Peppino e la... malafemmina (1956). She died on 15 February 2011 in Torcegno, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy.- Franca Marzi was born on 18 August 1926 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She was an actress, known for Nights of Cabiria (1957), Fortunella (1958) and The Pirates of Capri (1949). She was married to Franco Festucci. She died on 6 March 1989 in Cinisello Balsamo, Lombardy, Italy.
- Gabriella Pallotta was born on 6 October 1938 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for The Roof (1956), Hero of Rome (1964) and The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962).
- She was born Maria Luisa Lucia Allasio, the daughter of Lucia Rocchietti and Federico Allasio, a successful football player (for Genoa and Torino) and latterly coach (of Bologna, Lazio and Cagliari). Educated in Genoa, Maria won a beauty pageant ("Miss Lido") at the age of fourteen. This did not go unnoticed in the press and magazines published pin-ups of her, which led to the girl pushing her parents to enrol her in Rome's Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica. Discovered there by the producer/director Carlo Ponti, she appeared on the screen from 1952 and had a leading role in the crime drama Cuore di mamma (1954), now billed as Marisa Allasio. Blonde and well-proportioned, she was soon touted as the 'Italian Jayne Mansfield', though her screen personae rarely strayed from the straight and narrow. In Italy, she became popular as Anna in Luigi Zampa's Ragazze d'oggi (1955) and as Giovanna in Dino Risi's Belle ma povere (1957), both romantic comedies. Marisa gained some international exposure through her appearance in Seven Hills of Rome (1957), starring the opera singer Mario Lanza.
Her career ended abruptly upon her marriage to Count Pier Francesco Vittorio Maria Agostino Luca Frediano Calvi di Bergolo, nephew of the former King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, on November 10 1958. As a bona fide countess, she resided in the Piedmontese Castle of Pomaro Monferrato. In a 1985 interview, she confessed that her sole regret was having spurned the role of Angelica Sedara in The Leopard (1963). offered her by director Luchino Visconti (it went to Claudia Cardinale instead). - Lyla Rocco was born on 18 January 1933 in Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. She was an actress, known for Le avventure di Nicola Nickleby (1958), Ça va barder (1955) and One Step to Eternity (1954). She was married to Alberto Lupo and Steve Barclay. She died on 17 January 2015 in Rome, Italy.
- Giovanna Ralli was born on 2 January 1935 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress and writer, known for We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974), The Mercenary (1968) and A Prostitute Serving the Public and in Compliance with the Laws of the State (1971). She was previously married to Ettore Boschi.
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Monica Vitti was born on 3 November 1931 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She was an actress and writer, known for L'Avventura (1960), Red Desert (1964) and L'Eclisse (1962). She was married to Roberto Russo. She died on 2 February 2022 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Actress
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Sophia Loren was born as Sofia Scicolone at the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome on September 20, 1934. Her father Riccardo was married to another woman and refused to marry her mother Romilda Villani, despite the fact that she was the mother of his two children (Sophia and her younger sister Maria Scicolone). Growing up in the slums of Pozzuoli during the second World War without any support from her father, she experienced great sadness in her childhood. Her life took an unexpected turn for the best when, at age 14, she entered into a beauty contest and placed as one of the finalists. It was here that Sophia caught the attention of film producer Carlo Ponti, some 22 years her senior, whom she later married. Perhaps he was the father figure she never experienced as a child. Under his guidance, Sophia was put under contract and appeared as an extra in ten films beginning with Le sei mogli di Barbablù (1950), before working her way up to supporting roles. In these early films, she was credited as "Sofia Lazzaro" because people joked her beauty could raise Lazzarus from the dead.
By her late teens, Sophia was playing lead roles in many Italian features such as La favorita (1952) and Aida (1953). In 1957, she embarked on a successful acting career in the United States, starring in Boy on a Dolphin (1957), Legend of the Lost (1957), and The Pride and the Passion (1957) that year. She had a short-lived but much-publicized fling with co-star Cary Grant, who was nearly 31 years her senior. She was only 22 while he was 53, and she rejected a marriage proposal from him. They were paired together a second time in the family-friendly romantic comedy Houseboat (1958). While under contract to Paramount, Sophia starred in Desire Under the Elms (1958), The Key (1958), The Black Orchid (1958), It Started in Naples (1960), Heller in Pink Tights (1960), A Breath of Scandal (1960), and The Millionairess (1960) before returning to Italy to star in Two Women (1960). The film was a period piece about a woman living in war-torn Italy who is raped while trying to protect her young daughter. Originally cast as the more glamorous child, Sophia fought against type and was re-cast as the mother, displaying a lack of vanity and proving herself as a genuine actress. This performance received international acclaim and was honored with an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Sophia remained a bona fide international movie star throughout the sixties and seventies, making films on both sides of the Atlantic, and starring opposite such leading men as Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, and Charlton Heston. Her English-language films included El Cid (1961), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Arabesque (1966), Man of La Mancha (1972), and The Cassandra Crossing (1976). She gained wider respect with her Italian films, especially Marriage Italian Style (1964) and A Special Day (1977), both of which co-starred Marcello Mastroianni. During these years she received a second Oscar nomination and won five Golden Globe Awards.
From the eighties onward, Sophia's appearances on the big screen came few and far between. She preferred to spend the majority of her time raising sons Carlo Ponti Jr. (b. 1968) and Edoardo Ponti (b. 1973). Her only acting credits during the decade were five television films, beginning with Sophia Loren: Her Own Story (1980), a biopic in which she portrayed herself and her mother. She ventured into other areas of business and became the first actress to launch her own fragrance and design of eyewear. In 1982 she voluntarily spent nineteen days in jail for tax evasion.
In 1991 Sophia received an Honorary Academy Award for her body of work, and was declared "one of world cinema's greatest treasures." That same year, she experienced a terrible loss when her mother died of cancer. Her return to mainstream films in Ready to Wear (1994) was well-received, although the film as a whole was not. She followed this up with her biggest U.S. hit in years, the comedy Grumpier Old Men (1995), in which she played a sexy divorcée who seduces Walter Matthau. Over the next decade Sophia had plum roles in a few independent films like Soleil (1997), Between Strangers (2002) (directed by Edoardo), and Lives of the Saints (2004). Still beautiful at 72, she posed scantily-clad for the 2007 Pirelli Calendar. Sadly, that same year she mourned the death of her 94-year-old spouse, Carlo Ponti. In 2009, after far too much time away from film, she appeared in the musical Nine (2009) opposite Daniel Day-Lewis. These days Sophia is based in Switzerland but frequently travels to the states to spend time with her sons and their families (Eduardo is married to actress Sasha Alexander). Sophia Loren remains one of the most beloved and recognizable figures in the international film world.- Actress
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Eleonora Brown was born on 22 August 1948 in Naples, Campania, Italy. She is an actress and producer, known for Two Women (1960), The Last Judgment (1961) and Amore mio (1964).- Silvana Corsini was born on 15 May 1941 in Italy. She is an actress, known for Mamma Roma (1962), Accattone (1961) and Tentazioni proibite (1965).
- Paola Guidi is known for Accattone (1961).
- Loredana Detto was born on 14 March 1946 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. She is an actress, known for Il posto (1961). She was previously married to Ermanno Olmi.
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Anna Magnani was born in Rome, Italy (not in Egypt, as some biographies claim), on March 7, 1908. She was the child of Marina Magnani and an unknown father often said to be from Alexandria, Egypt, but whom Anna herself claimed was from the Calabria region of Italy although she never knew his name. Raised in poverty by her maternal grandmother in Rome after her mother left her, Anna worked her way through Rome's Academy of Dramatic Art by singing in cabarets and night-clubs, then began touring the countryside with small repertory companies.
Although she had a small role in a silent film in the late 1920s, she was not known as a film actress until Doctor, Beware (1941), directed by Vittorio De Sica. Her break-through film was Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945) (A.K.A. Open City), generally regarded as the first commercially successful Italian neorealist film of the postwar years and the one that won her an international reputation. From then on, she didn't stop working in films and television, winning an Academy Award for her performance in the screen version of Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo (1955), a part that was written for her by her close friend Williams. She worked with all of Italy's leading directors of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
She was renowned for her earthy, passionate, woman-of-the-soil roles. She and Rossellini were lovers for some years after Open City, until he began his infamous affair with Ingrid Bergman. She had one child, Luca, with Italian actor Massimo Serato. The boy was later stricken with polio and Magnani dedicated her life to caring for him. Her only marriage, to Italian director Goffredo Alessandrini in the mid-1930s, lasted only a short while and ended in an annulment. Her last film was Federico Fellini's Roma (1972). She died in her native Rome from pancreatic cancer the following year at age sixty-five.- Actress
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Lilla (Adelaide) Brignone (Rome, August 23, 1913 - Milan, 24 March 1984) was an Italian actress. Even as a child she attended film sets and theaters, being the daughter of the director and the actress Lola Guido Visconti, nephew of the actress Mercedes Brignone, actor Uberto Palmarini and actor and director Giuseppe Brignone. She debuted in theater in just fifteen in Kiki Palmer company. Actress of the most representative of the '900 Italian, worked with important personalities of the show like Ruggero Ruggeri, Memo Benassi, Renzo Ricci, Giorgio Strehler, Salvo Randone, Vittorio De Sica and Luchino Visconti. For the dryness and interpretive intensity and countersigned, she is remembered in the theater even for the roles of Vasilisa in "L'albergo dei poveri" in Maksim Gorky (directed by Strehler), de "La signorina Giulia" by August Strindberg (directed by Visconti) and Mrs. Frola in "Così è (se vi pare)" Pirandello (directed by Giancarlo Sepe). San Genesio won the Prize in 1955 for her portrayal of how the leaves of Giuseppe Giacosa. She was life companion and the scene of Gianni Santucci with whom she formed one of the most famous couples in the history of Italian theater. Also loved by film directors, she was directed among others by Salvatore Samperi, Pasquale Squitieri, Jean Delannoy, Bernard Borderie, Alberto Lattuada, Renato Castellani, Alessandro Blasetti, Michelangelo Antonioni. In 1972 she was honored with an Oscar Capitoline, sympathy award given to those who have distinguished themselves in solidarity.- Actress
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Catherine Spaak was born on 3 April 1945 in Boulogne-Billancourt, Seine [now Hauts-de-Seine], France. She was an actress and writer, known for The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971), The Easy Life (1962) and The Empty Canvas (1963). She was married to Vladimiro Tuselli, Daniel Rey, Johnny Dorelli and Fabrizio Capucci. She died on 17 April 2022 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.A French-Italian Actress- Actress
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Spanning five decades of Italian cinema, Rina Morelli's screen appearances were always interesting and powerful, but it is on the stage that she produced her most interesting and ground-breaking work. She debuted, aged seven, in 'Morte Civile' by Paolo Giacometti, directed by the famous stage actor Ermete Zacconi alongside her father Amilcare Brillanti. Her first notable success was 'Liliom' by Ferenc Molnár opposite Annibale Betrone. In 1938, she joined the company of the Teatro Eliseo in Rome and spent the next few years appearing alongside Gino Cervi, Andreina Pagnani and Paolo Stoppa who would become her life-long partner. Their many successes include William Shakespeare's 'La dodicesima notte' (Twelth Night) (1938) and 'Le allegre comari di Windsor' (The Merry Wives of Windsor) in 1939; the adaptation of the French play 'Les jours heureux' by Claude-André Puget (Giorni Felici) also in 1938. In 1944 they all appeared in Ernst Eklund's 'Quartetto pazzo' directed by 'Guido Salvani', remade for the big screen in 1945 with the same team except for Andreina Pagnani who was replaced by Anna Magnani in the role of Elena. It was after the war though that Rina Morelli would be at her most powerful in plays directed by the brilliant Luchino Visconti with whom she would work almost exclusively in the theatre for the next 20 years. His directing genius and her versatility as an actress would perfectly serve modern plays like 'Parenti terribili' (Les parents terribles) by Jean Cocteau (1945), Jean Anouilh's 'Antigone', 'A porte chiuse' (Huis clos) by Jean-Paul Sartre appearing alongside Paolo Stoppa and Vivi Gioi (all in 1945) and 'Zoo di vetro' (The Glass Menagerie) by Tennessee Williams (1946). She triumphed in 1949 in another Tennessee Williams' play: 'Un tram che si chiama desiderio' (A Streetcar Named Desire) with Vivi Gioi again and Vittorio Gassman (she would reprised the role of Blanche Dubois two years later, this time opposite Paolo Stoppa, a young Marcello Mastroianni and Rossella Falk) and in 1951 in Arthur Miller's 'Morte di un commesso viaggiatore' (Death of a Salesman). Visconti would also direct her in classics like Shakespeare's 'Rosalinda o come vi piace' (As You Like It) (1948), 'Troilo e Cressida' (Troilus and Cressida) (1949), Goldoni's 'La locandiera' (1952) and 'L'impresario di Smirne' in 1957, Anton Checkhov's 'Tre sorelle' (Three Sisters) (1952) and 'Zio Vania' (Uncle Vania) (1955). Her work also includes Vittorio Alfieri's 'Oreste' (1949); two plays by the Italian author Diego Fabbri: 'Il seduttore' (1951) and 'Figli d'arte' (1959); another Miller's play 'Uno sguardo dal ponte (A View from the Bridge)' with Paolo Stoppa; 'I ragazzi della Signora Gibbons' (Mrs. Gibbons' boys) by Will Glickman and Joseph Stein and 'Immagini e tempi di Eleonora Duse' all three in 1958 and 'L'Arialda' by Giovanni Testori in 1960, all directed by Visconti. Her last collaborations with the maestro were 'Il tredicesimo albero' (Le treizième arbre) by André Gide and Checkhov's 'Giardino dei ciliegi' (The Cherry Orchard), respectively in 1963 and 1965.- Actress
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During the 1950s and 1960s bosomy, scintillating, dark-haired Tunisian leading lady Sandra Milo played bored patricians, manipulative mistresses and other enticing ladies of questionable morals with typical sensuous flare in scores of Italian and French productions.
Born Elena Liliana Greco in Tunis on March 11, 1933, Sandra made her film debut at age 20 co-starring tauntingly alongside Alberto Sordi in Lo scapolo (1955) and renamed herself. For the next full decade, she unleashed her fiery figure on a number of tempted male players in scores of saucy comedies, feisty costumers and steamy melodramas. Such films included Nero's Mistress (1956), The Adventures of Arsène Lupin (1957), The Mirror Has Two Faces (1958) [The Mirror Has Two Faces], Toto in the Moon (1958) [Toto in the Moon], General Della Rovere (1959) [General della Rovere], and the period comedy romp The Green Mare (1959) starring the great French actor Bourvil, which served as the inspiration to the bawdy classic "Tom Jones."
Ms. Milo appeared to fine advantage in two of Fellini's greatest masterpieces - 8½ (1963) and Juliet of the Spirits (1965). She personified the aloof Italian temptress opposite Europe's most virile, passionate leading men -- Vittorio Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Sorel, etc.
Leaving films in 1968, Sandra was little seen on camera and did not return to the big screen until over a decade later, now sporadically appearing as severe-looking blondes. Primarily filming in Italy well into her octogenarian years, such movies have included the comedy Riavanti... Marsch! (1979), the dramedy Grog (1982), the musical fantasy Cindy - Cinderella '80 (1984), the comedy Camerieri (1995), the romantic dramedy Incantato (2003), the comedies Sleepless (2009), Happy Family (2010), Una notte agli studios (2013), There's No Place Like Home (2018) and Free - Liberi (2020).- Gabriella Giorgelli was born on 29 July 1941 in Carrara, Tuscany, Italy. She is an actress, known for The Organizer (1963), The Police Are Blundering in the Dark (1975) and Bersaglio altezza uomo (1978).
- Giorgia Moll is one of the many beauties with whom the Italian cinema teemed in the 1950s and 1960s. Her harmonious face, her perfect brown hair and her dream measurements did not escape the talent scouts of the time and she was only seventeen when she was hired for her first film Non scherzare con le donne (1955). Her career is undistinguished on the whole but two of her roles stand out: Phuong, Audie Murphy's Vietnamese love interest in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Quiet American (1958), filmed in Rome in 1957; and Francesca Vanini, the dogsbody secretary of authoritarian film producer Jack Palance in Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt (1963). During this period, Giorgia Moll was also a popular singer. After 1970, her appearances became sporadic and she retired for good in 1985. She is now a photographer.
- Susanna Pasolini was born on 10 March 1891 in Casarsa della Delizia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. She was an actress, known for The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964). She was married to Carlo Alberto Pasolini. She died on 1 February 1981 in Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy.
- Margherita Caruso was born in 1950 in Italy. She is an actress, known for The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964).
- Xenia Valderi was born on 21 June 1926 in Split, Croatia. She was an actress, known for Woman of Rome (1954), Red Desert (1964) and Il prigioniero del re (1954). She died on 3 November 2008 in Castelnuovo di Porto, Lazio, Italy.
- Paola Pitagora was born on 24 August 1941 in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. She is an actress, known for Fists in the Pocket (1965), Unknown Woman (1969) and I promessi sposi (1967).
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Liliana Gerace was born on 9 August 1921 in Naples, Campania, Italy. She was an actress and writer, known for Fontamara (1980), Adam and Eve (1983) and Un amore di Dostoevskij (1978). She died on 15 March 2010 in Sacrofano, Lazio, Italy.- Graziella Galvani was born on 27 June 1931 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. She was an actress, known for Pierrot the Fool (1965), Detective Story (1970) and Una notte di pioggia (1984). She was married to Giustino Durano. She died on 25 August 2022 in Urbino, Marche, Italy.
- Mara Krupp was born on 26 October 1935 in Italy. She is an actress, known for For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Big Bust-Out (1972) and Squillo (1964).
- Femi Benussi was born on 4 March 1945 in Rovigno, Istria, Italy [now Rovinj, Istria, Croatia]. She is an actress, known for Poppea... una prostituta al servizio dell'impero (1972), Bloody Pit of Horror (1965) and La commessa (1975).
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Like many other female Italian film stars, Claudia Cardinale's entry into the business was by way of a beauty pageant. She was 17 years old and studying at the Centro Sperimentale in Rome when she entered a beauty contest, which resulted in her getting a succession of small film roles. Her earthy interpretations of Sicilian women got her noticed by Italian producers, and the combination of her beauty, dark, flashing eyes, explosive sexuality and genuine acting talent virtually guaranteed her stardom. After Careless (1962) she rose to the front ranks of Italian cinema, and became an international star in Federico Fellini's classic 8½ (1963) with Marcello Mastroianni. American audiences may best remember her from her starring role in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).- Actress
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Silvana Mangano was born on April 21, 1930 in Rome, Italy and was raised in poverty during World War II. She trained as a dancer for seven years and supported herself as a model. In 1946, at age 16, she won the Miss Rome beauty pageant and through this, she obtained role in a Maria Della Costa film. One year later, she was one of the girls in the Miss Italia contest. Lucia Bose became "The Queen", and nearby, on the stage of Stresa, were some other future stars of Italian cinema: Gina Lollobrigida, Eleonora Rossi Drago and Gianna Maria Canale.
Mangano's earlier connection with filmmaking occurred with her romantic relationship with actor Marcello Mastroianni. This led her to a film contract, though this would take some time for Mangano to ascend to international stardom with her role in Bitter Rice (1949). Thereatfer, she signed a contract with Lux Film, and later married Dino De Laurentiis, who was on the verge of becoming a known producer. Though she never scaled the heights of her contemporaries Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida, Mangano remained a favorite star of the 1950s and 1970s, appearing in Anna (1951), The Gold of Naples (1954), Mambo (1954), Teorema (1968), Death in Venice (1971) and The Scopone Game (1972).
Married to film producer Dino De Laurentiis from 1949, the couple had four children: Veronica, Raffaella, Francesca and Federico. Veronica's daughter Giada is the host of "Everyday Italian" and "Giada at Home" on the Food Network. Raffaella co-produced with her father on Mangano's penultimate film, the science fiction epic Dune (1984). In 1983, she separated from De Laurentiis and abandoned her career to live in Paris and Madrid, where she made tapestries. Following surgery on December 4, 1989 that left her in a coma, Silvana Mangano died at age 59 of lung cancer in Madrid, Spain during the early morning hours of December 16, 1989.- Actress
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She was born in Viareggio (Tuscany, Italy) on June 5th, 1946. She won a beauty contest when she was just 15 years old, which led to her first role in "Il federale" together with the great Italian actor Ugo Tognazzi. She was then cast by Germi for the Italian comedy "Divorzio all'Italiana", working with Marcello Mastroianni, but she became well known a few years later performing in the movie "Sedotta e abbandonata". At 16 she had a relationship with the Italian musician Gino Paoli and in 1964 she gave birth to her first daughter Amanda. In the 70s she worked with directors Bernardo Bertolucci, Ettore Scola, Comencini and acted with Vittorio Gassman, Dustin Hoffman (Alfredo, Alfredo), Robert De Niro and Gerard Depardieu (Novecento). In the 80s she performed her sexiest role in "La chiave" by Tinto Brass, which made her an erotic icon for a whole generation of men, and participated in important Italian movies (for example Speriamo che sia femmina, with Catherine Deneuve and Liv Ullman). In the 90s she especially worked for tv series and became very popular as Gigi Proietti's fiancée in "Il Maresciallo Rocca". She worked a little less for the cinema industry, nevertheless she participated in Bertolucci's "Io ballo da sola" and in Muccino's "L'ultimo bacio", where she portrayed a woman in the deep of a midlife crises. On September 10th 2005 she received the Golden Lion at the 62th Venice Film Festival for her life achievements.
Stefania Sandrelli represents one of the few actresses who are able to age gracefully and still get interesting roles. She is still regarded as one of the most beautiful women in Italy and she is still able to charm the audience with her sweet smile and sparkling eyes.- Actress
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Anita Pallenberg was a model and actress best known for her involvement with The Rolling Stones in the 1960s and 1970s. She was born in 1942 to Arnold Pallenberg, a descendant of a prominent family of furniture manufacturers from Cologne, Germany, and Elfriede Paula Wiederhold, a German secretary. She grew up in Rome, Italy, where her father owned a travel agency, and Germany, where she was sent to a boarding school at her father's request. After being expelled from school at sixteen, she lived in Munich, where she studied at an art school, hung out with the La Dolce Vita crowd in Rome and eventually traveled to New York where she connected with Andy Warhol's Factory. In 1965, Anita Pallenberg was working as a model all over Europe when she met The Rolling Stones backstage at a concert in Munich. She started a tumultuous relationship with guitarist Brian Jones that lasted until she left him for his band-mate Keith Richards in 1967. With Richards, she formed a relationship that lasted twelve years and produced three children. During her time with The Rolling Stones, Anita was considered to be a muse for the band and a huge influence on their style and music. She also became known as an actress in her own right in the late '60s and early '70s, working with directors such as Volker Schlöndorff, who directed her debut A Degree of Murder (1967) and Roger Vadim in Barbarella (1968). The end of her relationship with Richards in the late 1970s, personal struggles with addiction and the death of her youngest son shortly after his birth saw her drift from the public eye for many years. In the '90s, Anita Pallenberg returned to the spotlight. She got a degree in fashion design and would occasionally take up small roles in film and on television. Her status as a fashion icon, inspiring designers and celebrities, remains to the present day. Anita Pallenberg died in 2017 due to complications from hepatitis C.- Nora Ricci was born on 19 July 1924 in Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy. She was an actress, known for Anna Karenina (1974), Death in Venice (1971) and Nel mondo di Alice (1974). She was married to Vittorio Gassman. She died on 16 April 1976 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
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Maria Monti was born on 26 June 1935 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. She is an actress, known for Duck, You Sucker! (1971), 1900 (1976) and I grandi camaleonti (1964).- First a typist at a law firm, young Maria Michi then became an usherette at Teatro Quattro Fontane in Rome. She was in the right place to become an actress, for was soon noticed and given small parts in the company of Sergio Stofano and Diana Torreri during the 1942-1943 season. Her first major assignment was in the revue 'Con un palmo di naso' with 'Toto' and Anna Magnani. Her companion at that time was screenwriter Sergio Amidei, which was another chance, since he introduced her to Roberto Rossellini. Hence a breathtaking debut for the beautiful young actress who appeared in two masterpieces of Italian neorealism on the run: Open City (in which she was the two-faced fiancée of a resistant) and Paisan (where she was the moving Francesca, an ordinary girl turned prostitute due to the postwar circumstances). Her next films paled by comparison and Maria Michi, disappointed by the turn of her career, quit the movie world for no less than thirteen years. During this period she married Prince Augusto Torlonia and returned to the theatre. She made her comeback in 1960 and for fifteen years Maria Michi, now a very good mature character actress, appeared in small parts in good movies signed Claude Chabrol, Bernardo Bertolucci, Peter Del Monte and Mauro Bolognini. She also did worthwhile radio and television work. She retired in 1976 and died too young at the age of fifty-eight.
- Giovanna Galletti was born on 27 June 1916 in Bangkok, Thailand. She was an actress, known for Last Tango in Paris (1972), Rome, Open City (1945) and The Loves of Hercules (1960). She died on 21 April 1992 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
- Fiona Florence is known for Roma (1972), Genova a mano armata (1976) and Peccatori di provincia (1977).
- Pupella Maggio was born on 24 April 1910 in Naples, Campania, Italy. She was an actress, known for Amarcord (1973), Cinema Paradiso (1988) and Il medico della mutua (1968). She was married to Luigi Dell'Isola. She died on 8 December 1999 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.
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Valentina Cortese was born in Milan on New Year's Day of 1923. She made her movie debut in 1940 and played many "ingenue" parts in Italian films of that period, before making a real sensation in Caccia all'uomo (1948) and Tempesta su Parigi (1948), playing both female leads, Fantine and Cosette (the film was a competent screen adaptation of the Victor Hugo classic "Les misérables"). The international success of the British-made melodrama The Glass Mountain (1949) brought her some Hollywood offers: she was very sensual as a truck-driver's mistress in Jules Dassin's film noir Thieves' Highway (1949), and particularly effective in Robert Wise's thriller The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), in which she portrayed a woman pursued by a killer.
She then returned to Europe and worked with many great directors, like Michelangelo Antonioni, who cast her in The Girlfriends (1955), and Federico Fellini, who gave her a supporting part in his surrealist fantasy Juliet of the Spirits (1965). She had an especially robust part in Francois Truffaut's Day for Night (1973) as a fading alcoholic movie star (she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for this performance). She also had a stage career, working with writers and directors such as Giorgio Strehler and Franco Zeffirelli and starring in the title roles of Schiller's "Mary Stuart" and Wedekind's "Lulu".- Actress
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Mariangela Melato was born on 19 September 1941 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. She was an actress and writer, known for Flash Gordon (1980), Swept Away (1974) and Love & Anarchy (1973). She died on 11 January 2013 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Actress
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Lea Massari was born on 30 June 1933 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress and writer, known for L'Avventura (1960), Murmur of the Heart (1971) and Indian Summer (1972). She has been married to Carlo Bianchini since 13 November 1963.- Actress
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Isa Danieli was born on 13 March 1937 in Naples, Campania, Italy. She is an actress and assistant director, known for Cinema Paradiso (1988), Love & Anarchy (1973) and Camorra (A Story of Streets, Women and Crime) (1985).- Agostina Belli was born on 13 April 1947 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. She is an actress, known for Scent of a Woman (1974), The Career of a Chambermaid (1976) and Double Murder (1977).
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Daria Nicolodi was born on 19 June 1949 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. She was an actress and writer, known for Phenomena (1985), Deep Red (1975) and Tenebrae (1982). She died on 26 November 2020 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Elena Fiore was born on 29 July 1914 in Torre Annunziata, Naples, Italy. She was an actress, known for Seven Beauties (1975), Love & Anarchy (1973) and The Seduction of Mimi (1972). She died on 1 February 1983 in Torre Annunziata, Naples, Italy.
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Francesca Marciano was born on 17 July 1955 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is a writer and actress, known for A Five Star Life (2013), Euphoria (2018) and The Miracle (2018).- Actress
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Ornella Muti was born on 9 March 1955 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for Flash Gordon (1980), Oscar (1991) and The Most Beautiful Wife (1970). She was previously married to Federico Fachinetti and Alessio Orano.- Laura Antonelli was born on 28 November 1941 in Pola, Istria, Italy [now Pula, Istria, Croatia]. She was an actress, known for Passion of Love (1981), Malicious (1973) and The Innocent (1976). She was married to Enrico Piacentini. She died on 22 June 2015 in Ladispoli, Rome, Lazio, Italy.
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Laura Betti was born on 1 May 1927 in Casalecchio di Reno, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. She was an actress and writer, known for 1900 (1976), La Dolce Vita (1960) and Teorema (1968). She died on 31 July 2004 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Actress
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Francesca Bertini was undoubtedly one of the first divas of cinema, a lady not only on screen but also in real life. She made her film debut in La dea del mare (1907) and after that producers fought for her services. In 1921 she married European nobleman and banker Alfred Cartier. She tried her hand at directing films as well as acting in them and turned out two well-received efforts, Assunta Spina (1915) and Tosca (1918)). She made the transition from silent films to talkies, although her output slowed down considerably. Her final role was in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 (1976).
A "diva" to the end, she died in a "grand hotel" in Rome, Italy, in 1985, receiving friends and fans on her deathbed in a sumptuous salon.- Carmen Scarpitta was born on 26 May 1933 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for La Cage aux Folles (1978), Vestire gli ignudi (1979) and Fango bollente (1975). She died on 26 April 2008 in Cabo San Lucas, Los Cabos, Baja California Sur, Mexico.
- Marcella Michelangeli was born on 28 January 1943 in Uscio, Liguria, Italy. She is an actress, known for The Big Racket (1976), I 7 di Marsa Matruh (1970) and Immacolata e Concetta, l'altra gelosia (1979).
- Francesca Moriggi was born in 1938 in Brignano Gera d'Adda, Lombardy, Italy. She was an actress, known for The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978). She died on 29 September 2002 in Brignano Gera d'Adda, Lombardy, Italy.
- Jole Silvani was born on 9 December 1910 in Trieste, Austria-Hungary [now Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy]. She was an actress, known for The White Sheik (1952), Il tempo dell'inizio (1974) and La famiglia Passaguai (1951). She died on 31 October 1994 in Trieste, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy.
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Edwige Fenech was born Edwige Sfenek on December 24, 1948, in Bone, Constantine, France, to a Maltese father and an Italian mother. She began her show-business career as a participant in beauty contests (she won the title of "Miss Mannequin de la Cote d'Azur" at age 16 and even won a Miss France beauty contest) and worked as a photo model prior to making her film debut in the comedy Toutes folles de lui (1967). She appeared in such saucy West German sex farces as Alle Kätzchen naschen gern (1969) and Sexy Susan Sins Again (1968).
With her lustrous and long black hair, lovely and sensuous face, full shapely figure and smoldering screen presence, Edwige soon became a very popular and much sought-after actress in a diverse array of European productions made in Italy, France, Spain and West Germany. She achieved her greatest enduring cult cinema popularity by starring in several superior Italian giallos for director Sergio Martino: The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971), They're Coming to Get You! (1972) and Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972) (she was the onetime girlfriend of Martino's producer brother, Luciano Martino).
Edwige also acted for Martino in a handful of racy Italian sex comedies and the Italian mini-series Delitti privati (1993). Other noted Italian film directors Fenech has worked for are Mario Bava (Five Dolls for an August Moon (1970)), Giuliano Carnimeo (The Case of the Bloody Iris (1972)), Andrea Bianchi (Strip Nude for Your Killer (1975)), Umberto Lenzi (The Biggest Battle (1978)), Steno (Dr. Jekyll Likes Them Hot (1979)), Dino Risi (Sono fotogenico (1980)) and Ruggero Deodato (Phantom of Death (1987)).
She demonstrated her exceptional range and skill as an actress with enjoyably uninhibited performances in such amusingly bawdy Italian comedic romps as Quel gran pezzo della Ubalda tutta nuda e tutta calda (1972) and The School Teacher (1975). Edwige became a television personality in the 1980s and made frequent appearances on an Italian chat show along with fellow giallo goddess Barbara Bouchet. Moreover, Fenech launched her own fashion line and founded her own film production company, Immagine e Cinema S.r.l., with her son Edwin Fenech (she co-produced the 2004 film The Merchant of Venice (2004) as well as various Italian TV mini-series and made-for-TV features).
In the mid-1990s Edwige was engaged to famous Italian industrialist Luca Cordero di Montezemolo. She made a welcome return to acting with a small but funny part as an alluring art class professor in Eli Roth's Hostel: Part II (2007).- Sara Franchetti was born on 15 May 1946 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for Nightmare City (1980), War and Remembrance (1988) and Unknown Woman (1969). She was previously married to Ettore Conti.
- Valeria D'Obici was born on 17 April 1944 in Lerici, Liguria, Italy. She is an actress, known for Passion of Love (1981), Escape from the Bronx (1983) and 45th Parallel (1986).
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- Camera and Electrical Department
- Producer
Cinzia Monreale was born on 22 June 1957 in Genoa, Italy. She is an actress and producer, known for The Beyond (1981), Turbo (2000) and Cave of the Sharks (1978).