Top Italian Beauties
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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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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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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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Luciana Paluzzi's an Italian actress, best known for playing SPECTRE assassin ,Fiona Volpe, in the fourth James Bond film, Thunderball.
In the film, Thunderball she had auditioned for the part of the lead Bond girl, Dominetta "Domino" Petacchi, but producers cast Claudine Auger, changing the Domino character from an Italian to a Frenchwoman and renaming her Dominique Derval.
Paluzzi's first film was an uncredited walk-on part in Three Coins in the Fountain (1954).- 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.