Alida Valli
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| Alida Valli | |
 Alida Valli, 1940s |
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| Born | Alida Maria Laura Altenburger Baroness von Marckenstein und Frauenberg 31 May 1921 Pola, Istria, Croatia |
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| Died | 22 April 2006 (aged 84) Rome |
| Other name(s) | Valli |
| Spouse(s) | Oscar De Mejo (1944 - 1952, 2 children: Carlo De Mejo (Italy) and Lorenzo "Larry" De Mejo (USA)) |
Alida Valli (31 May 1921 – 22 April 2006), sometimes simply credited as Valli, was an Italian actress who appeared in over 100 films, including Carol Reed's The Third Man and Luchino Visconti's Senso.[1]
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Valli was born in Pola, Istria, Italy, to parents who both had mixed ancestry. Her paternal grandfather was the Baron Luigi Altenburger (also: Altempurger), an Austrian-Italian from Trento, descent of the Counts d'Arco and her paternal grandmother was Elisa Tomasi from Trento, a cousin of the roman senator Ettore Tolomei. Valli's mother, Silvia Oberecker della Martina, born in Pola, was the daughter of the German-Austrian Felix Oberecker (also: Obrekar) from Laibach, Austria (now Ljubljana, Slovenia), her mother was Virginia della Martina from Pola, Istria (then part of Austria). Valli's maternal granduncle, Rodolfo, was a close friend of Gabriele d'Annunzio. Valli was christened Alida Maria Laura Altenburger, Baroness von Marckenstein und Frauenberg of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. She also gained the titles Dr.h.c. of the III. University of Rome, Chevalier of Arts of France and Cavaliere of the Italian Republic.
[edit] 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 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 earned her success as dramatic actress 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 famous 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.
[edit] 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. Montesi was a fashion model. Her body was found on a public beach near Ostia; prolonged investigations resulted, involving allegations of drug and sex orgies in Roman society. The accusation of Piccioni, of Ugo Montagna, and of Maurizio d'Assia (Moritz von Hessen, the son of Princess Mafalda of Savoy) were a major part of the scandal. Subsequently they were absolved from the accusations.
Alida Valli had two sons with her husband Oscar de Mejo: Carlo de Mejo, born in Rome (has a son Pier Paolo de Mejo) and Larry de Mejo, born in Los Angeles, now living in Rochester (has four children in the US).
Valli's death at her home on 22 April 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". Another official statement by the Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi read, "La scomparsa di Alida Valli è una grave perdita per il cinema, il teatro e la cultura italiana".
Valli was buried at Rome's Verano Cemetery.
[edit] Filmography
[edit] Television
- I Figli di Medea (1959)
- Il caso Mauritius (1961)
- Doughboy (episode of Combat!, 1963)
- Desencuentro (series, 1964)
- Rome Will Never Leave You, three episodes of Dr. Kildare (1964)
- Il consigliere imperiale (1974)
- Les grandes conjurations: Le tumulte d'Amboise (1978)
- L'altro Simenon (series, 1979)
- L'eredità della priora (serial, 1980)
- Dramma d'amore (serial, 1983)
- Piccolo mondo antico (serial, 1989)
- Una vita in gioco 2 (serial, 1992)
- Delitti privati (1992)
[edit] Theatre
- La casa dei Rosmer (1956) Henrik Ibsen (aka Rosmersholm)
- L'uomo, la bestia e la virtù (1956), Luigi Pirandello
- Gli innocenti (1956), William Archibald
- Enrico IV (1958), Luigi Pirandello
- Il sole e la luna (1965), Guglielmo Biraghi
- Epitaffo per George Dillon (1966), John Osborne and Anthony Creighton (Epitaph for George Dillon)
- Uno sguardo dal ponte (1967), Arthur Miller (A View from the Bridge)
- La bambolona (1968), Raf Vallone
- Il dio Kurt (1969), Alberto Moravia
- I parenti terribili (1969), Jean Cocteau (Les parents terribles)
- LSD-Lei, scusi, divorzierebbe? (1970), Carlo Maria Pensa
- Uno sporco egoista (1971), Francois Dorin
- Lulu (Lo spirito della terra - Il vaso di Pandora) (1972), Frank Wedekind (Lulu [Erdgeist-Die Büchse der Pandora])
- Le massacre á Paris (1972), Christopher Marlowe (The Massacre at Paris)
- Il Gabbiano (1973), Anton Cechov
- L'uomo che incontrò de stesso (1981), Luigi Antonelli
- La Venexiana (1981), Anonimo del Cinquecento
- [[La fiaccola sotto il moggio (1981), Gabriele d'Annunzio
- Ekaterina Ivanovna (1983), Leonid Andreev
- Il malinteso (1984), Albert Camus (Le malentendu)
- Romeo e Giulietta (1985), William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
- A porte chiuse, da Sartre a Mishima (1986), di Jean-Paul Sartre e Yukio Mishima (Huis clos - Aoi - Hanjo)
- La città morta (1988), Gabriele D'Annunzio
- La nave (1988), Gabriele D'Annunzio
- I paraventi (1990), Jean Genet (Les paravents)
- Improvvisamente l'estate scorsa (1991), Tennessee Williams (Suddenly Last Summer)
- Più grandiose dimore (1993), Eugene O'Neill
- Così è (se vi pare) (1994), Luigi Pirandello
- Questa sera si recita a soggetto (1995), Luigi Pirandello
[edit] References
- ^ Adam Bernstein (2006-04-24). "'The Third Man' Actress Alida Valli, 84". washingtonpost.com. Washington, DC: The Washington Post Company. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/23/AR2006042301137.html. Retrieved on 2008-09-22.
[edit] External links
- Alida Valli webpage
- Istria on the Internet, Prominent Istrians
- Alida Valli at the Internet Movie Database
- Alida Valli at the TCM Movie Database
- Alida Valli at Reel Classics
- Obituary in The Telegraph. April 24, 2006.
- Obituary in The Guardian. April 24, 2006.
- Obituary in New York Times. April 25, 2006.
- André Soares (7 June 2006). "Alida Valli (1921 - 2006)". Alternative Film Guide. http://www.altfg.com/actors/alida-valli.htm. Retrieved on 2007-03-09.
- "Alida Valli". filmreference.com. http://www.filmreference.com/Actors-and-Actresses-Va-Wi/Valli-Alida.html. Retrieved on 2007-05-15.
- Photographs of Alida Valli
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