Saturday, April 22, 2006

Obit: Alida Valli, 84; One of Italy's Most Famous Movie Actresses

The ANNOTICO Report

 

Alida Valli, was born May 31, 1921 in Pola, Istria, Italy (now Pula, Croatia) of aristocratic paternal ancestry.

Her real name was Baroness Alida Maria Laura Altenburger von Marckenstein  Freedenberg.

This enigmatic, dark-haired foreign import was dubbed "The Next Garbo"

Her 140 Performances are listed at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0885098/

Her earliest was in 1934, and latest in 2002

Her Biographies by RAI and Istria.Net  can be found at the HyperLinks at the bottom of this article.

 

 

 

 

 

ITALY'S VALLI, STAR OF "THIRD MAN", DIES

 

Reuters

Sat Apr 22, 2006

 

ROME  - Alida Valli, one of Italy's most famous movie actresses, who starred in "The Third Man" and "The Paradine Case", has died at 84.

Valli, who was also known by her family name Alida Altenburger, died at home in Rome, her son told Reuters.

She rose to fame in Italy in the late 1930s and 1940s with a string of romantic films that endeared her to her war-weary compatriots and earned her the soubriquet "Italy's girlfriend".

Her beauty and understated acting also got her noticed by Hollywood and when World War Two ended she was chosen to star in two of the most famous films of the post-war era.

In Alfred Hitchcock's 1947 courtroom thriller "The Paradine Case", she starred alongside Gregory Peck, while in the "Third Man" she played the girlfriend to Orson Welles' Harry Lime.

Welles later told his biographer Valli was "the sexiest thing you ever saw in your life".

She went on to work with many more of the 20th century's great directors, including Roger Vadim, Claude Chabrol, Luchino Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci.

 

 

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