Alida Valli
Alida Valli | |
Alida Valli in The Paradine Case (1947) |
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Birth name | Alida Maria Laura von Altenburger, Baroness of Marckenstein and Frauenberg |
Born | 31 May 1921 Pola (Pula), Istria, Italy |
Died | 22 April 2006 Rome |
Other name(s) | Valli |
Spouse(s) | Oscar De Mejo |
Official site | Alida Valli |
Alida Valli (31 May 1921 – 22 April 2006), sometimes simply credited as Valli, was an Italian actress.
Contents |
Biography
Early life
Valli was born in Pola, Istria, then in Italy (now called Pula, Croatia), to parents who both had Austrian and Italian ancestry. Her paternal grandfather was Luigi Altenburger from Trento and her paternal grandmother was Elisa Tomasi from Trento, a cousin of the Roman senator Ettore Tolomei. Valli's mother, Virginia della Martina, was the daughter of the German-Austrian Felix Oberecker from Laibach. Valli's maternal uncle, Rodolfo, was a close friend of Gabriele d'Annunzio. Valli was christened Alida Maria Laura von Altenburger, Baroness of Marckenstein and Frauenberg of the The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
Career
At fifteen years old she went to Rome, where she attended the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, a school for film actors and directors. At that time she lived at her uncle's, the Roman senator Ettore Tolomei. Valli started her movie career in 1934, in Il cappello a tre punte (The Three Cornered Hat). The first big success came with the movie Mille lire al mese. After many roles in a large number of comedies, she could prove her dramatic talent in Piccolo mondo antico (1941), directed by Mario Soldati. During the War Years she starred in many movies, like Stasera niente di nuovo (1942) and Noi Vivi - Addio Kira! (1943) (based on Ayn Rand's novel, We the Living) and became a movie star.
Valli had a career in English language films through David Selznick, who signed her to a contract, thinking that he had found a second Ingrid Bergman. In Hollywood she performed in several movies: she was the murder suspect Maddalena Paradine in Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947), and the mysterious Czech refugee wanted by the Russians in post-war Vienna in Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949). But her foreign experience was not a great success due to the financial problems of Selznick's production company.
In the early 1950s she returned to Europe, and starred in many French and Italian films. In 1954 she had a great success in the melodramatic Senso, directed by Luchino Visconti. In that film, set in mid-1800s Venice during the Risorgimento, she was a Venetian countess torn between nationalistic feelings and an adulterous love for an officer (played by Farley Granger) of the occupying Austrian forces. Her performance was vivid and passionate.
In 1959, she appeared in Georges Franju's horror masterpiece Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face). From the 1960s she worked in several pictures with great directors, like Pier Paolo Pasolini (Edipo re, Oedipus Rex, 1967), Bernardo Bertolucci (La strategia del ragno, 1972; Novecento, 1976) and Dario Argento (Suspiria, 1977). Her final movie role was in Semana Santa (2002), with Mira Sorvino. In Italy, she was also well-known for her stage appearances in such plays as Ibsen's Rosmersholm; Pirandello's Henry IV; John Osborne's Epitaph for George Dillon; and Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge.
Personal life
Valli's movie career suffered as a result of the infamous Wilma Montesi scandal, in which her lover and jazz musician Piero Piccioni (the son of the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs) was involved together with Maurizio d'Assia (Moritz von Hessen), the son of the famous Italian princess Mafalda di Savoia.
Her death at her home on April 22, 2006, was announced by the office of the mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, whose statement read, "The Italian cinema has lost one of its most intense and striking faces".
Valli was buried at Rome's Verano Cemetery.
Filmography
- (1934)
- (1936)
- (1937)
- (1937)
- (1937)
- (1938)
- (also known as L'amore mio non muore, 1938)
- (1938)
- (1938)
- (1939)
- (1939)
- (1940)
- (1940)
- (1940)
- (1939)
- Piccolo mondo antico (1941)
- (1941)
- (1941)
- (1941)
- (1942)
- (1942)
- (1942)
- We the Living (1942)
- (1942)
- (1943)
- (1943)
- (1943)
- (1944)
- (1945)
- (1945)
- (1947)
- The Paradine Case (1947)
- (1948)
- The Third Man (1949)
- The White Tower (1950)
- Walk Softly, Stranger (1950)
- (1951)
- (1951)
- (1952)
- (1953)
- (1953)
- Siamo donne (Segment: "Alida Valli", 1953)
- Senso (1954)
- (1957)
- (1957)
- Il grido (1957)
- (1958)
- (1958)
- Eyes Without a Face (1959)
- (1959)
- (TV film, 1959)
- (1960)
- (1960)
- (1960)
- (1960)
- The Long Absence (1961)
- (TV film, 1961)
- (1961)
- (1962)
- (1962)
- (1962)
- (1962)
- (1963)
- (1963)
- Ophelia (1963)
- (1963)
- (1963)
- Doughboy (episode of the TV series Combat!, 1963)
- (TV series, 1964)
- Rome Will Never Leave You, three episodes of the TV series Dr. Kildare (1964)
- (episode "La vedova", 1965)
- Edipo re (1967)
- (1970)
- (1970)
- , directed by Valerio Zurlini (1972)
- (1972)
- (1973)
- (1973)
- (1973)
- (aka )
- (1974)
- (TV film, 1974)
- (1974)
- (1975)
- La Chair de l'orchidée (1975)
- (1975)
- Novecento (1976)
- (1976)
- Cassandra Crossing (1976)
- (1977)
- Suspiria (1977)
- (1978)
- (1978)
- (1978)
- (TV film, 1978)
- (1978)
- La luna (1979)
- (TV series, 1979)
- (1979)
- Inferno (1980)
- (TV serial, 1980)
- (1980)
- (1981)
- (1981)
- (1982)
- (TV serial, 1983)
- (1985)
- (1985)
- (1987)
- (1988)
- (TV serial, 1989)
- (1991)
- (1991)
- (TV serial, 1992)
- (TV film, 1992)
- (1993)
- (1993)
- (1995)
- (1996)
- (1999)
- (2000)
- (2000)
- (2002)
External links
- Alida Valli at the Internet Movie Database
- Alida Valli at the TCM Movie Database
- [1] Obituary in The Daily Telegraph (London), April 24, 2006
- [2] Obituary in The Guardian (London), April 24, 2006
- André Soares (7 June 2006). Alida Valli (1921 - 2006). Alternative Film Guide. Retrieved on 2007-03-09.
- Alida Valli. filmreference.com. Retrieved on 2007-05-15.
- Photographs of Alida Valli