Alida Valli

Baroness Alida Maria Laura Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg (31 May 1921 – 22 April 2006), better known by her stage name Alida Valli, or simply Valli, was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films in a 70-year career, spanning from the 1930s to the early 2000s. She was one of the biggest stars of Italian film during the Fascist era, once being called "the most beautiful woman in the world" by Benito Mussolini, and was internationally successful post-World War II.

Valli worked with many significant directors both in Italy and abroad, including Alfred Hitchcock (The Paradine Case; 1947), Carol Reed (The Third Man; 1949), Luchino Visconti (Senso; 1954), Michelangelo Antonioni (Il Grido; 1957), Georges Franju (Eyes Without a Face; 1960), Pier Paolo Pasolini (Oedipus Rex; 1967), Mario Bava (Lisa and the Devil; 1972), Bernardo Bertolucci (1900, 1976; La Luna; 1979), and Dario Argento (Suspiria; 1977). Within her lifetime, Valli was invested a Knight of the Italian Republic, and received the Lifetime Achievement Golden Lion at the 1997 Venice Film Festival for her contributions to cinema.

Early life and family Valli was born in Pola, Istria, Italy (today Pula, Croatia). She was christened Freiin Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg. Valli was of Austrian, Slovenian and Italian descent, although "she was never considered to be anything other than Italian." Her paternal grandfather was the Baron Luigi Altenburger (also spelled Altempurger), an Austrian-Italian from Trento, a descendant of the Counts d'Arco; 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, first piano teacher of Slovenian pianist and composer Mirca Župnek Sancin, was a "culturally sophisticated" housewife of half-Slovene and half-Italian descent. In 1951, she complained that she disliked the single-name reference. "I feel silly going around with only one name," she said. "People get me mixed up with Rudy Vallée."

She returned to Europe in the early 1950s and starred in many French and Italian films. In 1954, she had great success in the melodrama Senso, directed by Luchino Visconti. In that film, set in mid-19th-century Venice during the Risorgimento, she played a Venetian countess torn between patriotic ideals and an adulterous love for an officer (played by Farley Granger) of the occupying Austrian forces.

In 1956, Valli decided to stop making movies, concentrating instead on the stage. She managed a theatrical company that produced Broadway plays in Italy.

She appeared in Georges Franju's horror film Eyes Without a Face (1959) with Pierre Brasseur. From the 1960s, she worked in several pictures with prominent directors, such as Pier Paolo Pasolini's Oedipus Rex (1967); Bernardo Bertolucci's The Spider's Stratagem (TV movie, 1970); Bernardo Bertolucci's Novecento (1976); Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977); and Giuseppe Bertolucci's Berlinguer, I Love You (1977), as the mother of the main character played by Roberto Benigni in his film debut. 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 Henrik Ibsen's Rosmersholm; Luigi Pirandello's Henry IV; John Osborne's Epitaph for George Dillon; and Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge. At the 54th Venice International Film Festival in 1997 Alida Valli obtained the Golden Lion award for her career.

Personal life

Her teenage love, Carlo Cugnasca, was a famous Italian aerobatic pilot. He served as a fighter pilot with the Regia Aeronautica and was killed during a mission over British-held Tobruk on 14 April 1941.

Valli married Oscar de Mejo in 1943 and filed for divorce from him in 1949, but they reconciled. They had two sons together before their marriage ended in divorce in 1952 and she returned to Italy. She married Italian film director Giancarlo Zagni in the early 1960s, divorcing in 1970.

During her lifetime, Valli received an honorary doctorate from the Roma Tre University, as well as the titles of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of France and Knight of the Italian Republic.

Death Valli's death at her home on 22 April 2006 was announced by the office of the mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni. The critic David Shipman wrote in his book The Great Movie Stars: The International Years that, based on her best-known films before 1950, she might seem to be "one of Hollywood's least successful continental imports", but a viewer of "any two or three of the films she has made since then ... will probably regard her as one of the half-dozen best actresses in the world". The French critic Frédéric Mitterrand wrote: "[She] was the only actress in Europe to equal Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo".

Filmography Film

Television I Figli di Medea (1959) as Medea / Alida Valli Il caso Mauritius (1961) Combat! as Marie (Episode: "Doughboy", 1963) Desencuentro (series, 1964) Rome Will Never Leave You, three episodes of Dr. Kildare (1964) as Luisa Brabante Il consigliere imperiale (1974) Les grandes conjurations: Le tumulte d'Amboise (1978) L'altro Simenon (series, 1979) L'eredità della priora (serial, 1980) as Priora Dramma d'amore (serial, 1983) Piccolo mondo antico (serial, 1989) as La marchesa Maironi Una vita in gioco 2 (serial, 1992) Delitti privati (1992) as Matilde Pierboni

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 à 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

Radio appearances Year Programme Episode/source 1948 Lux Radio Theatre The Miracle of the Bells Lux Radio Theatre broadcast "The Paradine Case" in a radio adaptation of the film on 9 May 1949, starring Joseph Cotten, with Alida Valli and Louis Jourdan reprising their roles.