Small Czech collector card by Pressfoto, Praha (Prague), 1965, no. S 83/6. Stefania Sandrelli and Marcello Mastroianni in Divorzio all'italiana/Divorce, Italian Style (Pietro Germi, 1961).
Sensual, vivacious and very talented Italian actress Stefania Sandrelli (1946) is famous for her roles in the Commedia all'Italiana. She was 15 years old when she had her breakthrough opposite Marcello Mastroianni in the Oscar-winning comedy Divorzio all'italiana/Divorce, Italian Style (1961). Later she also played dramatic roles in Italian classics like Ettore Scola's C'eravamo tanto amati, and Bernardo Bertolucci’s Il conformista/The Conformist (1970) and Novecento/1900 (1976).
Film actor Marcello Mastroianni (1924-1996) was Italy's favourite leading man since the 1950s, as well as one of the finest actors of European cinema. In his long and prolific career, Mastroianni almost singlehandedly defined the contemporary type of Latin lover, then proceeded to redefine it a dozen times and finally parodied it and played it against type.
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Italian postcard by Rotocalco Dagnino, Torino. Photo: LIF. Cosetta Greco in Il Brigante di Tacca del Lupo/The Bandit of Tacca del Lupo (Pietro Germi 1952), based on the novel by Riccardo Bacchelli. Publicity card for the Manzoni cinema, Turin, where the film ran from 21 November [1952] onwards.
Italian actress Cosetta Greco (1930-2002) appeared in 31 films between 1943 and 1971. She is famous for films such as Il brigante di Tacca del Lupo (1952), Le ragazze di piazza di Spagna/Three Girls from Rome (Luciano Emmer, 1952), Gli eroi della domenica/Sunday Heroes (Mario Camerini, 1953), and Cronache di poveri amanti/Chronicle of Poor Lovers (Carlo Lizzani, 1954).
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Yugoslavian postcard by Cik Razglednica.
One of Italy's best-loved artists, Adriano Celentano (1938) has been equally successful in film and music. Since starting his career as a rock ‘roll singer in 1957, Adriano Celentano has released 40 albums. This superstar of Italian pop music is also active as songwriter, comedian, film director and TV host.
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Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 705. Ugo Tognazzi.
Ugo Tognazzi (1922-1990) was an Italian film, TV, and theatre actor, director, and screenwriter. During the 1960s and 1970s, he was one of the most renowned stars of the Commedia all Italiana. He worked with such major directors as Marco Ferreri, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luigi Comencini, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Ettore Scola, but his greatest hit was the gay comedy La cage aux Folles (1978).
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East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 2869. Retail price: 0,20 MDN.
Seductive Italian actress Virna Lisi (1936) appeared in more than 100 film and TV productions and is internationally best known as a tempting blue-eyed blonde in Hollywood productions of the 1960’s. But she proved to be more than a pretty face. Later she had a career Renaissance with three-dimensional character parts in a wide variety of Italian and French. A triumph was her portrayal of a malevolent Catherine de Medici in La Reine Margot (1994) for which she won both the David di Donatello and the César awards.
Virna Lisi was born as Virna Lisa Pieralisi in Ancona, Italy in 1936. Her brother, Ubaldo, will become a talent agent. Her sister is actress Esperia Pieralisi. Virna began her film career as a teenager. She was discovered by two Neapolitan producers (Antonio Ferrigno and Ettore Pesce) in Paris. Her debut was in La corda d'acciaio/The line of steel (1953-1958, Carlo Borghesio). Initially, she did musical films, like in E Napoli canta/Napoli sings (1953, Armando Grottini) and the successful four-episode film Questa è la vita/Such is life (1954, Luigi Zampa a.o.), with the popular Totò. Her looks were more valued than her talent in some of her early films, like in Le diciottenni/Eighteen Year Olds (1955, Mario Mattoli) with Marisa Allasio, and Lo scapolo/The Bachelor (1955, Antonio Pietrangeli) with Alberto Sordi. She incarnated more demanding roles in Il cardinale Lambertini/Cardinal Lambertini (1954, Giorgio Pastina) opposite Gino Cervi, La Donna del Giorno/The Doll That Took the Town (1956, Francesco Maselli), the peplum Romolo e Remo/Duel of the Titans (1961, Sergio Corbucci) featuring musclemen Steve Reeves and Gordon Scott as the two legendary brothers, and Eva/Eve (1962, Joseph Losey) starring Jeanne Moreau. In the late 1950’s, Lisi played on stage at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano, and appeared in I giacobini by Federico Zardi, under the direction of Giorgio Strehler. During the 1960’s, Lisi played in stage comedies and she also participated in some very popular dramatic television productions. On TV she also promoted a toothpaste brand, with a slogan which would become a catchphrase amongst the Italians: "con quella bocca può dire ciò che vuole" (with such a mouth, she can say whatever she wants).
In the 1960’s, Hollywood producers were looking for a successor to Marilyn Monroe and so Virna Lisi made a dent in Hollywood comedies as a tempting blue-eyed blonde. She first starred opposite Jack Lemmon in George Axelrod’s satirical How to Murder Your Wife (1965, Richard Quine). At IMDb reviewer Mdantonio takes hit hat off for her performance: “What most everyone fails to mention in the comments is the incredible skill of Virna Lisi. She is a natural mixing it up with Lemmon, (Claire) Trevor and the other veterans like she had been making movies for years. I have watched many movies in my day and I must say that Virna Lisi is right at the top, not only in beauty and sexuality but in carrying her role as good as anyone else could have. Ms. Lisi, my hat is off to you.” She also gained attention with the March 1965 cover of Esquire magazine on which she was shaving her face. The following year she appeared in another comedy, Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966, Norman Panama) now with Tony Curtis. She also starred with Frank Sinatra in Assault on a Queen (1966, Jack Donohue), with Rod Steiger in La Ragazza e il Generale/The Girl and the General (1967, Pasquale Festa Campanile), and twice with Anthony Quinn, in the war drama La vingt-cinquième heure/The 25th Hour (1967, Henri Verneuil), and in The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969, Stanley Kramer). To overcome her typecasting as a sexy, seductive woman, Lisi sought new types of roles, and found these in such Italian comedies as Le bambole/Four Kinds of Love (1965, Dino Risi a.o.), Signore & signori/The Birds, the Bees and the Italians (1966, Pietro Germi) and Le dolci signore (1968), and Roma bene (1971, Carlo Lizzani) with Senta Berger. At Rovi, Robert Firsching reviews Signore & signori: “Pietro Germi's funny anthology combines the standard sex comedy format with some unexpectedly subtle observations about village life. The film centers on three stories exposing the sexual secrets of the Italian town of Treviso. (...) Signore e Signori won the Best Film award at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival.”
In the early 1970’s, Virna Lisi decided to focus on her family, husband Franco Pesci and her son Corrado, born in 1962. In the later 1970’s she had a career renaissance with a series of major Italian films, including the Nietzsche biography Al di là del bene e del male/Beyond Good and Evil (1977, Liliana Cavani) starring Dominique Sanda, Ernesto (1979, Salvatore Samperi), La cicala/The Cricket (1980, Alberto Lattuada), and I ragazzi di via Panisperna/The Boys of the Via Panisperna (1989, Gianni Amelio) with Andrea Prodan and Mario Adorf. Prodan’s brother Luca is the singer of the Argentinean band later made a song for Lisi. A Brazilian rock band, Virna Lisi, is even named after her. Her greatest triumph was the French film La Reine Margot (1994, Patrice Chéreau) in which Lisi played a malevolent Catherine de Medici, ordering assaults, poisonings, and instigations to incest. Karl Williams writes at Rovi about the film: “The historical novel by Alexandre Dumas was adapted for the screen with this lavish French epic, winner of 5 Césars and a pair of awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Isabelle Adjani stars as Marguerite de Valois, better known as Margot, daughter of scheming Catholic power player Catherine de Medici (Virna Lisi).” For her magnificent portrayal Lisi won not only the César and Best Actress award in Cannes, but also the David di Donatello award, the Italian equivalent of the Oscar. Since the late 1990’s, she did many successful dramatic TV productions, including L'onore e il rispetto/Honour and respect (2006, Salvatore Samperi) with Gabriel Garko and Giancarlo Giannini. In 2002, Lisi starred in her last film, Il più bel giorno della mia vita/The Best Day of My Life (2002, Cristina Comencini) with Margherita Buy, but a new film is in production: Boogie Woogie (2011, Andrea Frezza) with Paul Sorvino. Vira Lisi is still married to architect Franco Pesci and they live in five villas in Rome, the Italian countryside and the mountains. They have three grandchildren: Franco, Federico and Riccardo.
Sources: Hal Erickson (Rovi), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia and IMDb.
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