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'Alida Valli' (31 May, 1921 – 22 April, 2006), sometimes simply credited as 'Valli', was an Italian actress.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Career

Personal life

Filmography

External links

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, she went to Rome, where she attended the ''Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia'', a school for film actors and directors. At that time, she lived with her uncle, the Roman senator Ettore Tolomei. Valli started her movie career in 1934, in ''Il cappello a tre punte'' (''The Three Cornered Hat''). Her first big success came with the movie ''Mille lire al mese''. After many roles in a large number of comedies, she showed her dramatic talent in ''Piccolo mondo antico'' (1941), directed by Mario Soldati. During the Second World War, 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.

She returned to Europe in the early 1950s, 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 played a Venetian countess torn between nationalistic feelings and an adulterous love for an officer (played by Farley Granger) of the occupying Austrian forces.
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

★ ''Il cappello a tre punte'' (1934) ★ ''I due sergenti'' (1936) ★ ''L'ultima nemica'' (1937) ★ ''Sono stato io!'' (1937) ★ ''Il feroce Saladino'' (1937) ★ ''Mille lire al mese'' (1938) ★ ''Ma l'amor mio non muore'' (also known as ''L'amore mio non muore'', 1938) ★ ''L'ha fatto una signora'' (1938) ★ ''La casa del peccato'' (1938) ★ ''Ballo al castello'' (1939) ★ ''Assenza ingiustificata'' (1939) ★ ''Taverna rossa'' (1940) ★ ''La prima donna che passa'' (1940) ★ ''Oltre l'amore'' (1940) ★ ''Manon Lescaut'' (1939) ★ ''Piccolo mondo antico'' (1941) ★ ''Luce nelle tenebre'' (1941) ★ ''Ore 9 lezione di chimica'' (1941) ★ ''L'amante segreta'' (1941) ★ ''Stasera niente di nuovo'' (1942) ★ ''Catene invisibili'' (1942) ★ ''Le due orfanelle'' (1942) ★ ''We the Living'' (1942) ★ ''Addio Kira'' (1942) ★ ''T'amerò sempre'' (1943) ★ ''I pagliacci'' (1943) ★ ''Apparizione'' (1943) ★ ''Circo equestre Za-bum'' (1944) ★ ''La vita ricomincia'' (1945) ★ ''Il canto della vita'' (1945) ★ ''Eugenia Grandet'' (1947) ★ ''The Paradine Case'' (1947) ★ ''The Miracle of the Bells'' (1948) ★ ''The Third Man'' (1949) ★ ''The White Tower'' (1950) ★ ''Walk Softly, Stranger'' (1950) ★ ''L'ultimo incontro'' (1951) ★ ''Les Miracles n'ont lieu qu'une fois'' (1951) ★ ''La mano dello straniero'' (1952) ★ ''Il mondo le condanna'' (1953) ★ ''Les Amants de Tolède'' (1953) ★ ''Siamo donne'' (Segment: "Alida Valli", 1953) ★ ''Senso'' (1954) ★ ''L'amore più bello'' (1957) ★ ''La grande strada azzurra'' (1957) ★ ''Il grido'' (1957) ★ ''This Angry Age'' (1958) ★ ''The Night Heaven Fell (Les Bijoutiers du clair de lune)'' (1958) ★ ''Eyes Without a Face'' (1959) ★ ''Signé Arsène Lupin'' (1959) ★ ''I Figli di Medea'' (TV film, 1959) ★ ''Le Dialogue des Carmélites'' (1960) ★ ''Treno di Natale'' (1960) ★ ''Il peccato degli anni verdi'' (1960) ★ ''Le gigolo'' (1960) ★ ''The Long Absence'' (1961) ★ ''Il caso Mauritius'' (TV film, 1961) ★ ''La fille du torrent'' (1961) ★ ''Il disordine'' (1962) ★ ''Homenaje a la hora de la siesta'' (1962) ★ ''The Happy Thieves'' (1962) ★ ''Al otro lado de la ciudad'' (1962)

★ ''L'Autre femme'' (1963) ★ ''A la salida'' (1963) ★ ''Ophelia'' (1963) ★ ''El Valle de las espadasl'' (1963) ★ ''El hombre de papel'' (1963) ★ ''Doughboy'' (episode of the TV series ''Combat!'', 1963) ★ ''Desencuentro'' (TV series, 1964) ★ ''Rome Will Never Leave You'', three episodes of the TV series ''Dr. Kildare'' (1964) ★ ''Umorismo nero'' (episode "La vedova", 1965) ★ ''Edipo re'' (1967) ★ ''La strategia del ragno'' (1970) ★ ''Le champignon'' (1970) ★ ''La prima notte di quiete'', directed by Valerio Zurlini (1972) ★ ''L'occhio nel labirinto'' (1972) ★ ''Diario di un italiano'' (1973) ★ ''La casa dell'esorcismo'' (1973) ★ ''No es nada mamá, sólo un juego'' (1973) ★ ''Casa dell'esorcismo, La'' (aka ''Lisa and the Devil'') ★ ''L'Anticristo'' (1974) ★ ''Il consigliere imperiale'' (TV film, 1974) ★ ''Tendre Dracula'' (1974) ★ ''Il caso Raoul'' (1975) ★ ''La Chair de l'orchidée'' (1975) ★ ''Ce cher Victor'' (1975) ★ ''Novecento'' (1976) ★ ''Le jeu du solitaire'' (1976) ★ ''Cassandra Crossing'' (1976) ★ ''Berlinguer ti voglio bene'' (1977) ★ ''Suspiria'' (1977) ★ ''Suor Omicidi'' (1978) ★ ''Un cuore semplice'' (1978) ★ ''Porco mondo'' (1978) ★ '' (TV film, 1978) ★ ''Indagine su un delitto perfetto'' (1978) ★ ''La luna'' (1979) ★ ''L'altro Simenon'' (TV series, 1979) ★ ''Zoo zéro'' (1979) ★ ''Inferno'' (1980) ★ ''L'eredità della priora'' (TV serial, 1980) ★ ''Aquella casa en las afueras'' (1980) ★ ''Sezona mira u Parizu'' (1981) ★ ''La caduta degli angeli ribelli'' (1981) ★ ''Sogni mostruosamente proibiti'' (1982) ★ ''Dramma d'amore'' (TV serial, 1983) ★ ''Segreti, segreti'' (1985) ★ ''Aspern'' (1985) ★ ''Le jupon rouge'' (1987) ★ ''À notre regrettable époux'' (1988) ★ ''Piccolo mondo antico'' (TV serial, 1989) ★ ''La bocca'' (1991) ★ ''Zitti e mosca'' (1991) ★ ''Una vita in gioco 2'' (TV serial, 1992) ★ ''Delitti privati'' (TV film, 1992) ★ ''Bugie rosse'' (1993) ★ ''Il lungo silenzio'' (1993) ★ ''A Month by the Lake'' (1995) ★ ''Fotogrammi mortali'' (1996) ★ ''Il dolce rumore della vita'' (1999) ★ ''L'amore probabilmente'' (2000) ★ ''Vino santo'' (2000) ★ ''Semana santa'' (2002)

External links

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★

★ [1] Obituary in ''The Daily Telegraph'' (London), April 24, 2006

★ [2] Obituary in ''The Guardian'' (London), April 24, 2006

★ Alida Valli (1921 - 2006) André Soares

★ Alida Valli

★ Photographs of Alida Valli