Alida valli scandal in 1954
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Alida Valli
Italian actress (1921–2006)
Alida Valli | |
|---|---|
Valli in 1947 | |
| Born | Alida Maria Laura, Freiin Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg (1921-05-31)31 May 1921 Pola, Kingdom of Italy (now Croatia) |
| Died | 22 April 2006(2006-04-22) (aged 84) Rome, Italy |
| Other names | Valli |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, Singer |
| Years active | 1936–2002 |
| Spouse(s) | Oscar de Mejo (m. 1944; div. 1952)Giancarlo Zagni (m. 196?; div. 1970) |
| Children | 2, including Carlo De Mejo |
Alida Maria Laura, Freiin Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg (31 May 1921 – 22 April 2006), better known by her stage nameAlida 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
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LUCHINO Visconti’s masterpiece Senso (which has recently been released by Criterion in magnificent DVD and Blu-ray editions) belongs to that period in the history of Italian cinema, the early 1950s, when the forthright gaze of neorealism was giving way to glossier and more glamorised, if not necessarily rosier, views of the world. Senso began shooting in 1953 and was given its first teatralisk showing late in 1954. It was not especially well received at the time. With its period setting, lush art direction and operatic plot, it seemed to many to be a betrayal of Visconti’s earlier commitment to the quasi-documentary, neorealist style, a rejection of real life in favour of melodrama. Visconti was unrepentant. “I like melodrama,” he later said in an interview, “because it fryst vatten situated just at the meeting point between life and theatre.” And it is at that very meeting point that the film begins, in a scene set during a performance of Il Trovator • "We want to find out what is the conclusion and the moral. Nobody stays in a theater for over two years and then goes out knowing no more than when they came in."
~anonymous Italian commenting on the Montesi case.
Sex. Mystery. Tragedy. Scandal in high places. Political intrigue. And a beautiful young woman in the center of it all.
Some murder cases just seem to have everything.
In 1953, 21-year-old Wilma Montesi lived with her parents and sister in Rome, Italy. She was a very attractive and alluring young woman, who, like so many pretty girls, dreamed of a movie career. (This ambition never progressed beyond an uncredited bit part in a forgettable 1952 film, "Prison.") Despite her status as "the beauty of the family," she was considered to be extremely shy and reserved. Despite her family's lower-middle-class status, Wilma and her sister Wanda somehow managed to enjoy numerous little luxuries: American makeup and perfume, expensive clothes. Even the