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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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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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Asia Argento was born in Rome, Italy, into a family of actors and filmmakers, both occupations which she has herself pursued. She made her debut when she was only nine years old in Sergio Citti's Sogni e bisogni (1985). In 1988 she had the leading role in Cristina Comencini's first film, Zoo (1988), and was part of the cast of The Church (1989), directed by Michele Soavi. The following year she played Nanni Moretti's daughter in Red Wood Pigeon (1989) (also directed by Moretti).
It was with Close Friends (1992), written and directed by Michele Placido, that Asia's career really took off and she was able to move on from playing very young girls to more mature, complex roles. The movie was well-received at the Cannes International Film Festival. In Trauma (1993), she worked for the first time with her father, famed Italian horror director Dario Argento (her mother is one of Argento's favorite actresses, Daria Nicolodi, playing an anorexic girl in search of her parents' killer. The Phantom of the Opera (1998) is the third film she has made with her father, the others being Trauma (1993) (filmed in the US) and The Stendhal Syndrome (1996).
Asia's absorbed, intense style of acting was well-used in Giuseppe Piccioni's Condannato a nozze (1993). In 1993 she co-starred in Carlo Verdone's Perdiamoci di vista (1994) in which she played Arianna, a physically disabled girl--an intricate, difficult role that won her the David di Donatello for best actress (1993-1994). She also had a featured role in the international cast of Queen Margot (1994), directed by Patrice Chéreau. In 1995 she worked with Michel Piccoli in Peter Del Monte's Traveling Companion (1996), which again won her a David di Donatello and a Grolla d'oro.
In 1994 Asia turned her hand to directing and turned out two short films: "Prospettive" (an episode of the film DeGeneration (1994)) and "A ritroso". In 1996 she directed a documentary on her father and, in 1998, one on cult director Abel Ferrara, Abel/Asia (1998), which won an award at the Rome Film Festival. In 1999 Asia made her feature-directing debut with Scarlet Diva (2000), in which she was the leading actress and author of the screenplay. The film was released in May 2000 in Italy and the rest of the world. It won an award at the Williamsburg Film Festival in Brooklyn, New York. In 2001, after directing a number of music videos, she gave birth to her first daughter, Anna Lou. In 2002 she starred in The Red Siren (2002) by Olivier Megaton with Jean-Marc Barr and the action thriller xXx (2002), directed by Rob Cohen, with Vin Diesel.
Asia is also the author of a number of short stories published in many prestigious magazines such as "Dynamo," "L'Espresso," "Sette," and "Village," Her first novel, "I Love You, Kirk," was published in Italy by Frassinelli Editrice in October 1999 and in France by Florent Massot in 2001.- Stunning Italian actress Virna Lisi, a brief but lovely Hollywood import in the 1960's, was merely one of a plethora of European movie beauties who proved over the course of their long careers, that they were capable of more than just visual performances.
Born Virna Lisa Pieralisi on November 8, 1936, she began her film career as a 17-year-old teen with a co-starring part with the musical drama ...e Napoli canta! (1953) (Naples Sings!). Cast initially for her photographic beauty, she gained more experience in such early pictures as Lettera napoletana (1954) and La corda d'acciaio (1954) before earning her first top-billed movie lead in Piccola santa (1954) opposite Rosario Borelli. Other late 50's/early 60's films that helped steam up her image included Luna nova (1955), Le diciottenni (1955), La rossa (1955), The Doll That Took the Town (1957), Lost Souls (1959) opposite Jacques Sernas, Don't Tempt the Devil (1963) (Don't Tempt the Devil), Sua Eccellenza si fermò a mangiare (1961) (His Excellency Stayed to Dinner], the Italian-made spectacle, Duel of the Titans (1961) and an innocent role in the French-made Eva (1962) starring the scheming Jeanne Moreau in the title role.
The pert and sexy star later made a decorative dent in late 1960's Hollywood as a tempting blue-eyed blonde opposite the likes of Jack Lemmon in How to Murder Your Wife (1965), Frank Sinatra in Assault on a Queen (1966) and Tony Curtis in Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966). Confined once again to the same type of glamour roles (she turned down the title role of "Barbarella"), she returned to Europe within a couple of years but hardly fared better with such nothing special movies as Anyone Can Play (1967), The Girl Who Couldn't Say No (1968), The Christmas Tree (1969), The Statue (1971), Bluebeard (1972) and White Fang (1973) and its sequel Challenge to White Fang (1974).
Come middle age, however, a career renaissance occurred for Virna. She began to be perceived as more than just a tasty dish and was given a wide variety of quality mature performances. As the stature of her films improved, she began winning foreign awards right and left for such European pictures as Beyond Good and Evil (1977), The Cricket (1980), Time for Loving (1983), Buon Natale... Buon anno (1989) and Va' dove ti porta il cuore (1996) (Follow Your Heart). It all culminated in the lifetime role of the malevolent "Caterina de Medici" in Queen Margot (1994) for which she captured both the César and Cannes Film Festival awards, not to mention the Italian Silver Ribbon award.
Virna continued reigning supreme on TV as a character lead and support player into the millennium with parts in such TV movies as the title role in Anna's World (2004) and Donne sbagliate (2007) (Steel Women) as well as Italian TV series work. Starring as the matriarch in the excellent family film drama Il più bel giorno della mia vita (2002), Virna would find her last excellent movie role in the award-winning dramedy Latin Lover (2015). Having passed away on December 14, 2014, at age 78, of lung cancer, the actress received a couple of award nominations posthumously for her work here. Survived by her son Corrado, her longtime husband (from 1960), architect Franco Pesci (1934-2013), died a year earlier. - Actress
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Giovanna Mezzogiorno was born on 9 November 1974 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress and director, known for Vincere (2009), Love in the Time of Cholera (2007) and Facing Windows (2003). She has been married to Alessio Federico Fugolo since 24 October 2009. They have two children.- Actress
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Valentina Cervi (born 13 April 1974) is an Italian film and television actress. Cervi was born in Rome, Italy. She is the daughter of director Tonino Cervi and granddaughter of the famous Italian actor Gino Cervi. Cervi started her acting career at age ten in Carlo Cotti's Portami la luna (1987). She also played an English-language role in Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady (1996). One of her most acclaimed roles was the lead in Artemisia (1997), directed by Agnès Merlet. It was loosely based on the painter Artemisia Gentileschi's life, but controversially portrayed the relationship between Agostino Tassi (played by Predrag 'Miki' Manojlovic) and Artemisia as a passionate affair rather than as rape. In 2011, she appeared as Arianna in BBC TV's Italian detective mini-series Zen (2011). The London "Times" commenting on her role as follows: "Zen" (Rufus Sewell) need only walk into a Lavazzatore for B-movie-rank Gina Lollo to press her amples into his chest. An interview with one courtesan was conducted... With her in bra and fishnets, the interrogation interrupted by the command 'zip' as he dressed and undressed her". She also appeared as "Valentina" in Canale 5's series Distretto di polizia (2000). Cervi appeared as Bertha Mason in Cary Joji Fukunaga's film adaptation of Jane Eyre (2011). She was cast as the ancient vampire Salome in the HBO television drama True Blood (2008).- Actress
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Laura Morante was born on 21 August 1956 in Santa Fiora, Tuscany, Italy. She is an actress and writer, known for Cherry on the Cake (2012), The Son's Room (2001) and Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man (1981). She has been married to Francesco Giammatteo since 3 October 2004. She was previously married to Georges Claisse and Daniele Costantini.- Actress
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Valeria Golino is an Italian actress and film director. She is known to English-language audiences for her role in Rain Man, Big Top Pee-wee and the two Hot Shots! films, especially the olive-in-the-belly-button scene. The second child of an Italian germanist and a Greek painter, Valeria Golino grew up in Naples until her parents parted. After three years in Athens with her mother and another three in Naples with her father, she began to work as a model. She left high school after her first movie and didn't study performing arts at all. In 1985 she got the leading role in Little Flames (1985) by Peter Del Monte and the next year won the Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival for Storia d'amore (1986). After some European co-productions (Dernier été à Tanger (1987), The Gold Rimmed Glasses (1987), Three Sisters (1988)) she began to work in Hollywood (Big Top Pee-wee (1988)). She soon gained prominent roles in Rain Man (1988), Hot Shots! (1991) and Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993). Now she works in the US (Clean Slate (1994), An Occasional Hell (1996)), Europe (The King's Whore (1990), Immortal Beloved (1994)) and in Italy. too, especially with young directors (Come due coccodrilli (1994), Le acrobate (1997), L'albero delle pere (1998)). In 1994 she produced and acted in Slaughter of the Cock (1996) by Greek director Andreas Pantzis. Her voice is more appreciated in Hollywood (where she took speech therapy) than in Italy (where she is sometimes dubbed); in "The Slaughter of the Cock" she acts as a deaf and dumb woman. She speaks four languages: Italian, Greek, French and English. Her brother is a musician and their uncle Enzo Golino is a famous journalist.- Actress
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Milena Vukotic was born on 23 April 1935 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Letters to Juliet (2010) and A Good Woman (2004).- Actress
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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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Iaia Forte was born on 16 March 1962 in Naples, Campania, Italy. She is an actress, known for Black Holes (1995), Luna e l'altra (1996) and Leopardi (2014).- Actress
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Angela Finocchiaro was born on 20 November 1955 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. She is an actress and writer, known for The Invisible Wall (1991), Mio fratello è figlio unico (2007) and Don't Tell (2005).- Actress
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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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Anna Bonaiuto was born on 28 January 1950 in Latisana, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. She is an actress and writer, known for L'amore molesto (1995), The Postman (1994) and Il Divo (2008).- Actress
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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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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.- Actress
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Maria Rosaria Omaggio was born on 11 January 1954 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress and director, known for L'homme de Suez (1983), To Rome with Love (2012) and Walesa: Man of Hope (2013).- Actress
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Maria Luisa Pierangeli and her twin sister Anna Maria were born in Sardinia, Italy. They were fraternal twins with different personalities as well. Anna Maria was dreamy and innocent; Maria Luisa was independent and studious. They moved to Rome in the late 1940s. In 1948 their lives changed when director Vittorio De Sica cast Anna in Tomorrow Is Too Late (1950). In 1950 the family moved to Hollywood, where Anna Maria changed her name to Pier Angeli.
Marisa was not interested in acting, but was cast by John Ford in What Price Glory (1952) starring James Cagney. She changed her last name to Pavan, the name of a Jewish officer her family had hidden from the Nazis during World War 2. Marisa signed a contract with Fox, but was relieved when it was broken. She wanted a wider choice of roles than her sister. Pavan's performance in The Rose Tattoo (1955) supporting Italian icon Anna Magnani, earned her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
She lost interest in Hollywood while filming Solomon and Sheba (1959). She remembered it as a bad experience, and not just because costar Tyrone Power died during the filming. Pavan turned her attention to television in the 1960s. She and husband Jean-Pierre Aumont toured America and Europe in plays and musicals, including "Gigi". Later in France, she returned to film.
As of 2018, Pavan lives in the South of France. Marisa is the founder and director of URMA (Unis pour la Recherche sur la Maladie d'Alzheimer), an organization she created to support research working to find treatments for Alzheimer's.- Actress
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Born in Rome (Italy) on March 29 1968, Sabrina Impacciatore is an Italian cinema, TV and theater actress. She went to drama school at the Actors Studio in New York and in Rome. At the age of 25 she was discovered by Gianni Boncompagni who, overwhelmed by her volcanic personality, entrusted her with a part in the iconic TV program "Non è la Rai". Chosen for her versatility and performance skills, she was the first woman to take the stage as single presenter of the yearly First May Concert. She has worked with prominent directors, switching between comedic and dramatic roles. Since 2000, she has divided her time between the small and the big screen with unforgettable performances such as "L'ultimo bacio" by Gabriele Muccino, "Concorrenza Sleale" and "Gente di Roma" by Ettore Scola, "The Passion" by Mel Gibson and many more. She also played several challenging and complex roles such as in "Venus in Fur" directed by Valter Malosti.- Rosalinda Celentano was born on 15 July 1968 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for The Passion of the Christ (2004), Paz! (2002) and Probably Love (2001).
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Eleonora Giorgi was born on 21 October 1953 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress and director, known for Talcum Powder (1982), Love, Lies, Kids... & Dogs (2003) and Cuore di cane (1976). She was previously married to Massimo Ciavarro and Angelo Rizzoli Jr..- Actress
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Ángela Molina was born on 5 October 1955 in Madrid, Spain. She is an actress and art director, known for Live Flesh (1997), 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) and Broken Embraces (2009). She has been married to Leo Blakstad since 1995. They have two children. She was previously married to Hervé Timarche.- 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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Ambra Angiolini was born in Rome. Actress for cinema and theater, television and radio presenter. In 2023 she won the silver ribbon for the category Best Series 2022 and Best supporting actress together with Anna Ferzetti, for the series "Le fate ignoranti". In 2013 she won the David di Donatello, the Silver ribbon, the Globo d'oro and the Ciak d'oro awards as best supporting actress for the film Saturno contro directed by Ferzan Ozpetek.- Lunetta Savino was born on 2 November 1957 in Bari, Puglia, Italy. She is an actress, known for Loose Cannons (2010), Il candidato (2014) and La fuga (2013). She was previously married to Franco Tavassi.
- 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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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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Ottavia Piccolo was born on 9 October 1949 in Bolzano, Italy. She is an actress, known for The Leopard (1963), Metello (1970) and The Family (1987). She has been married to Claudio Rossoni since 11 December 1974. They have one child.- Actress
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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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Liù Bosisio was born on 30 January 1936 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. She is an actress, known for 1900 (1976), Fantozzi (1975) and Fantozzi 2 (1976).- 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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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
Rossella Falk was born on 10 November 1926 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She was an actress, known for 8½ (1963), Modesty Blaise (1966) and The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968). She was married to Gualtiero Giori and Nicola Tufari. She died on 5 May 2013 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- 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.- 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.
- Marina Massironi is a theater, cinema, and TV actress. She's well known for her affiliation with Aldo, Giovanni & Giacomo. With them, she appeared on numerous seasons of "MaidireGol", "I Corti", and "Tel chi el telun", and made her big screen debut in "Tre uomini e una gamba". She's worked with film directors such as Giuseppe Piccioni, Enzo Monteleone, Gianluca Fumagalli, Alessandro Benvenuti, Giuseppe Bonito, Edoardo Leo, Gianni Zanasi, Maurizio Zaccaro, she won a David di Donatello and Nastro D'Argento award for the film "Pane e Tulipani" by Silvio Soldini. Having always loved the stage, she starred in many hit performances such as: "I Corti", "Harry ti presento Sally", "Due Partite" by Cristina Comencini", "Sottopaga non si paga!" directed by the Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo, "La scuola" with Silvio Orlando, directed by Daniele Luchetti, for which she won a Premio Flaiano award as best theatrical actress, "La donna che sbatteva nelle porte" by R.Doyle, directed by Giorgio Gallione, "Rosalyn" by E.Erba, directed by Serena Sinigaglia, "La somma di due" from Lidia Ravera's book of the same name, "Le verità di Bakersfield" by S. Sachs, directed by Veronica Cruciani, and "Il Marito Invisibile" by Edoardo Erba, with Maria Amelia Monti. She has many TV series and shows under her belt: "Comici" and "L'Ottavo Nano", along with Serena Dandini and Corrado Guzzanti, numerous seasons of "MaidireGol" with the Gialappa's Band, "Cotti e mangiati" with Flavio Insinna for Rai1. She also dubbed many characters such as "Daria" for MTV, Grace from "Mucche alla riscossa/ Home on the Range", the Disney animated movie, Celia from "Monsters&Co." for Disney-Pixar. Her voice also appears in both the American and Italian versions of "Luca", a Disney-Pixar animated movie released in June 2021.
- Anna Galiena was born on 22 December 1949 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for The Hairdresser's Husband (1990), Black Angel (2002) and Senza pelle (1994).
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Margherita Buy was born on 15 January 1962 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress and writer, known for Mia madre (2015), The Ignorant Fairies (2001) and Days and Clouds (2007). She was previously married to Sergio Rubini.- Actress
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Stefania Rocca was born on 24 April 1971 in Turin, Piedmont, Italy. She is an actress and director, known for Nirvana (1997), Rosa e Cornelia (2000) and Viol@ (1998).- Actress
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Claudia Gerini was born in Rome, where she did classical studies and dance training. Her acting career began when an advertising agency cast her in several commercials.
Claudia Gerini has had a long movie career in Italy and abroad, working with actors and directors like Sergio Castellito, Giuseppe Tornatore, Mel Gibson, acting both in comedic and dramatic roles. Her first star-making role was in "Viaggi di nozze" with comedian Carlo Verdone, with whom she will still works from time to time.
In theater, Claudia Gerini appeared in the show "Angelo e Beatrice" by Francesco Apolloni. She recently returned to the stage with the one-woman show "Storie di Claudia," written and directed by Giampiero Solari, a musical which highlights all her skills: dance, singing and acting.
She has acted in some of the most interesting projects of contemporary Italian cinema, such as "La Sconosciuta" by Giuseppe Tornatore, "Non ti muovere" by Sergio Castellitto, "Una famiglia perfetta" by Paolo Genovese, "Diverso da chi" by Umberto Carteni and many others.
Claudia Gerini has two daughters (Rosa and Linda ) and never stops studying and training. In addition to Italian, she fluently speaks English, French and Spanish.- Actress
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Regina Orioli was born on 12 May 1977 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress and writer, known for Gasoline (2001), The Last Kiss (2001) and Gallo cedrone (1998).- 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."- Caterina Murino was born on September 15, 1977, in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy. In 1996 she took fourth place in the Miss Italy contest. Then she moved to Milan, where she began working as a model in commercials for MasterCard, Swatch, Mercedes-Benz and Nescafe, among other gigs. From 1999-2000 she studied acting at the Scuola di Cinema e Teatro di Francesca de Sapio in Italy.
In 1999 she made her acting debut in a stage production of "Richard III" and appeared in several Italian-language plays. In 2002 she began her film and television career with bit parts in Italian, German and French productions. Her breakthrough came in 2004, when she co-starred opposite Jean Reno in the French comedy The Corsican File (2004).
She is trilingual, speaking French, English and Italian. She is a versatile actress and a good athlete. Her talents include singing, dancing tango, flamenco and oriental dances, as well as horseback riding. She co-starred as Solange, one of three Bond girls, opposite Daniel Craig in Casino Royale (2006). - Dalila Di Lazzaro was born on 29 January 1953 in Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. She is an actress, known for Phenomena (1985), Jealous Eyes (1989) and Killer contro killers (1985).
- Domiziana Giordano was born on 4 September 1959 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Nostalghia (1983) and Zina (1985).
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Ida Di Benedetto was born on 3 June 1940 in Naples, Campania, Italy. She is an actress and producer, known for Fontamara (1980), Immacolata e Concetta, l'altra gelosia (1979) and Der Schlaf der Vernunft (1984).- Actress
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Elsa Martinelli was born in the central Tuscan city of Grosseto into a struggling family, one of eight siblings. She had to earn her keep from the age of twelve, delivering groceries in Rome. Looking older than her years suggested, she then did some part-time work as a barmaid. Aged sixteen and ambitious, she moved on to modeling and was soon promoted by well known designers, and, in particular, by a New York magazine editor who suggested a move to the Big Apple. While employed with the Eileen Ford Agency, she was spotted on a Life magazine cover by none other than Kirk Douglas (or by Douglas' wife, according to another version of the story) who, incidentally, happened to own a fashion company. In any case, Elsa soon found herself in Hollywood to co-star opposite Douglas in The Indian Fighter (1955) (despite some as yet unresolved problems with her command of English). Her sojourn in tinseltown was short-lived, however, and the contract she had signed with Douglas was quietly annulled -- and thus she famously spurned an opportunity to appear in the lucrative blockbuster Spartacus (1960). There were to be no further American pictures at this time. Instead, she returned to Italy, married Count Franco Mancinelli Scotti di San Vito, joined the glitterati, attended lavish parties and created an image for herself which rivaled those of Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. She counted Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas among her close friends.
Taken under the wing of Carlo Ponti, Elsa was able to eventually make a success of her screen career not merely because of her exotic good looks, but by deliberately varying the type of parts she took on and thereby avoid typecasting. Those included the titular Stowaway Girl (1957) who bewitches an embittered steamboat captain played by Trevor Howard. In stark contrast, she was also Carmilla, possessed by her vampiric ancestor Millarca in the unsatisfactorily filmed Blood and Roses (1960), an 'arthouse' horror movie, though artlessly directed by Roger Vadim, based on Sheridan Le Fanu's Gothic novella. Encumbered by excessive bathos, neither scary nor original, the only saving grace of the picture was derived from Claude Renoir's evocative camera work.
In Hatari! (1962) -- which might aptly be described as a good-looking travelogue -- Elsa co-starred as a freelance wildlife photographer on a Tanganyika game farm, torn between affections for baby elephants and 'bring-'em-back-alive' trapper John Wayne. With character development sorely lacking, the animals, the scenery (and two exquisitely ornamental ladies -- the other being Michèle Girardon) pretty much stole the show. Likewise, in her next outing, the wartime comedy The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962), Elsa was the romantic (mostly decorative) interest of Charlton Heston's army guy smuggled into Nazi-occupied Rome in 1944 to extract and send back secret military information via carrier pigeon. For the remainder of the '60s, Elsa appeared in a number of international co-productions which included a segment in The Oldest Profession (1967) as a Roman Emperor's wife discovered in a brothel; and as a gangster's daughter helping a bumbling American treasury agent in Rome (played by Dustin Hoffman in his first starring role) to recover Madigan's Millions (1968).
In 1968, Elsa married Paris Match photographer and furniture designer Willy Rizzo. Having already invested some of her earnings from film work into Roman and Parisian real estate, Elsa began to diversify into designing avant garde furniture with apparently mixed success. By the 1980s, she was active as an interior designer in Rome while still making sporadic screen appearances, primarily in TV series. Described by the newspaper La Repubblica as "an icon of style and elegance", Elsa Martinelli died on July 8, 2017 in Rome at the age of 82.- Actress
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Marilù Tolo was born on 16 January 1943 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for Marriage Italian Style (1964), Espionage in Lisbon (1965) and Eneide (1971).- Giuliana de Sio was born on 2 April 1956 in Salerno, Campania, Italy. She is an actress, known for La piovra (1984), The Pool Hustlers (1983) and The Wicked (1991).
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Born in Bologna, she is an actress and photographer. She has acted, among others, for Michelangelo Antonioni, Liliana Cavani, Marco Tullio Giordana, Gus Van Sant, and Mia Handsen-Love. In 2008 she began to exhibit her photography; in 2011 she was at the Biennale di Venezia, in 2014 her first solo exhibit in Tokyo. She debuted as a director In 2000 with the short Per sempre, which was in competition at the 57a Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica di Venezia, and won the Nastro d'Argento Prize.- Agnese Nano was born on 5 November 1965 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for Cinema Paradiso (1988), Il lungo silenzio (1993) and A Bad Encounter (2011).
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Athina Cenci was born on 13 March 1946 in Kos, Dodecanese Islands, Greece. She is an actress and writer, known for Speriamo che sia femmina (1986), Benvenuti in casa Gori (1990) and Rosa e Cornelia (2000).- Giuliana Calandra (born 10 February 1936) is an Italian film, television and stage actress, journalist and television hostess. Born in Moncalieri, Giuliana Calandra debuted in 1963 Pier Paolo Pasolini's "La ricotta" and appearing in hundreds of films, TV-series and stage works, including works by Dario Argento, Marco Ferreri, Alberto Sordi, Lina Wertmüller, Giorgio Albertazzi, Mario Monicelli, Costa-Gavras, Dino Risi, Sergio Corbucci, Alberto Lattuada. In the 1980s she started a parallel career as journalist and TV-author/presenter, mainly focusing on fashion and entertainment.
- 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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Piera Degli Esposti was born on 12 March 1938 in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. She was an actress and writer, known for Il Divo (2008), My Mother's Smile (2002) and Giulia Doesn't Date at Night (2009). She died on 14 August 2021 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Actress
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Alba Rohrwacher was born on 27 February 1979 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. She is an actress, known for Hungry Hearts (2014), The Wonders (2014) and I Am Love (2009).- Monica Guerritore was born on 5 January 1958 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for La lupa (1996), Love Under the Elms (1975) and On the Edge (2009). She has been married to Roberto Zaccaria since 17 August 2010. She was previously married to Gabriele Lavia.
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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.- Actress
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Nicoletta Braschi was born on 19 April 1960 in Cesena, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. She is an actress and producer, known for Life Is Beautiful (1997), Happy as Lazzaro (2018) and Johnny Stecchino (1991). She has been married to Roberto Benigni since December 1991.- Actress
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Donatella Finocchiaro was born on 16 November 1970 in Catania, Sicily, Italy. She is an actress and director, known for Angela (2002), The Wedding Director (2006) and Galantuomini (2008).- 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. - Lucrezia Lante della Rovere was born on 19 July 1966 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She is an actress, known for Quantum of Solace (2008), Gli occhi dell'altro (2005) and Speriamo che sia femmina (1986).
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After graduating in Architecture, Stefania began a career in acting and worked with Pietro Germi, Bernardo Bertolucci, Peter Greenaway and Dario Argento. She moved to New York in the late 1970s, where she acted in Andy Warhol's 'Bad'. While in New York she decided to move behind the camera, and became a director.
With Francesca Marciano, she wrote and directed the film "Lontano da dove", presented at the Venice Film Festival (1983). In 1997 she wrote and directed another feature film "Un Paradiso di Bugie". Her career as director also includes the making of six feature films for the Italian television network MEDIASET.
A passionate traveler, Stefania has made a great number of documentaries and reportages for RAI and MEDIASET. She focuses her attention on contemporary topics concerning women and young people. She has made many hard-hitting series including: "Islam: stories of women"; "Latin America: stories of women"; "To be 20 years old in..." (broadcast in ten European Countries 2004-2005); "So close so far :portraits in the suburbs". "Schiaffo alla mafia"(A blow to the Mafia)
Between 2000-2002 , Stefania was the Artistic Director of Siena's Film Festival "Terra di Siena". In 2010 she was Managing Director of DGTV IESTV.
Currently, Stefania writes and directs programs, reportages and documentaries for RAI, and for satellite channels: RAI Sat Cinema World, Gambero Rosso Channel, and Sky. She also works as a journalist, contributing to several popular women's magazines.- Actress
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Elena Sofia Ricci was born on 29 March 1962 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. She is an actress and director, known for Loose Cannons (2010), Io e mia sorella (1987) and Ne parliamo lunedì (1989). She has been married to Stefano Mainetti since October 2003. They have one child. She was previously married to Luca Damiani.- Actress
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Isabella Rossellini, the Italian actress and model who has made her home in America since 1979 and holds dual Italian and American citizenship, was born cinema royalty when she made her debut on June 18, 1952 in Rome. She is the daughter of two legends, three-time Oscar-winning Swedish-born actress Ingrid Bergman and neo-realist master Italian director Roberto Rossellini. She was also the third wife of Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese from 1979 to 1982 and the partner of legendary director David Lynch.
She made her movie debut in Vincente Minnelli's A Matter of Time (1976), which starred her mother. She then made a couple of Italian pictures and worked as an American correspondent for Italian television network RAI before appearing in Taylor Hackford's Cold War drama White Nights (1985) in 1985. She followed that up with her most memorable role, as the abused chanteuse in Lynch's masterpiece Blue Velvet (1986), she earned an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She then went on to win a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her performance as Lisle, the mysterious socialite, forever in her youth in Death Becomes Her (1992). In 1997, she was nominated for an Emmy Award as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for a guest appearance on Chicago Hope (1994).- Actress
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Italian actress/singer/songwriter Violante Placido was born in Rome. She made her on-screen debut in Quattro bravi ragazzi (1993) alongside her father Michele Placido. In 1996 she starred in Jack Frusciante Has Left the Band (1996) which became quite successful in Italy. Her first major role was in Sergio Rubini's L'anima gemella (2002) (Soul Mate). In 2006 she released her debut album Don't Be Shy... under the pseudonym Viola. In 2009 she appeared in the Hindi movie Barah Aana (2009). In 2010 she made her Hollywood debut starring alongside George Clooney in Anton Corbijn's thriller The American (2010).- 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.