Swarthy, Hot and Mediterranean

ITALIAN ACTRESSES

Silvana Mangano

(April 21, 1930 – December 16, 1989) was an Italian actress.Known for her appearance, at a young age she won a Miss Rome beauty pageant, which led her to cinema. The movie that brought her to stardom was “Bitter Rice” and she continued to have success in cinema. Born in Rome to an Italian father and an English mother, Mangano lived in poor times caused by the war. Trained for seven years as a dancer, she was supporting herself as a model. In 1946, at age 16, Mangano won the Miss Rome beauty pageant and through this she obtained a rôle in a Mario Costa movie. One year later she became a contestant in the Miss Italia contest. Potential actress Lucia Bosé became "The Queen", among Mangano and several other future stars of Italian cinema such as Gina Lollobrigida, Eleonora Rossi Drago and Gianna Maria Canale. Silvana Mangano was trained as a dancer and worked as a model before winning the Miss Rome beauty contest in 1946 which brought her into the movies. In her first starring role, as a migrant farm worker in Bitter Rice, caught between social awareness and jealousy born of a passionate love affair, she was instantly thrust into the international limelight. American critics called her the Italian Rita Hayworth, with an extra 20 pounds; she was the first of the postwar stars to represent the full-figured, fiery Italian beauty.

Her fame brought her offers from Hollywood and Alexander Korda but she turned them down in favor of marriage to Dino De Laurentiis who produced most of her films. Unlike several of her counterparts, Mangano quickly moved beyond the stereotype of an earthy sex symbol, and developed her skills as a dramatic actress. Her role in The Gold of Naples as the prostitute trapped in a marriage of honor to a rich uncaring man was critically acclaimed. Another role as a prostitute, in The Great War, revealed an ability at satirical comedy, while Crimean displayed her as a sophisticate.

She accepted few film offers and chose her roles carefully, usually preferring to collaborate with directors whose work she admired. Pasolini used her as Jocasta in Oedipus Rex, in The Decameron, and as an upper-middle-class mother whose life is profoundly changed by the visit of a young man to her home in Theorem. Pasolini said that she was practically contemptuous of her great beauty and that she worked hard at constantly improving her dramatic capabilities. She often worked with Luchino Visconti, and in fact played in four of his last six films. She reportedly accepted the role of Tadzio's mother in Death in Venice for no salary; her portrayal of the impeccably groomed aristocratic woman relied entirely on mime for its effect. At the opposite extreme was her role as a vulgar and pushy nouveau-riche mother in Conversation Piece. She played both the grand sophisticate of the past and the reptilian modern mother with equal conviction. ( Elaine Mancini )

Gina Lollobrigida: The Italian Sex Goddess

"A woman at 20 is like ice, at 30 she is warm and at 40 she is hot," Italian actress, Gina Lollobrigida once said. (Thinkexist.com) Most men would think that the 'Italian Sex Goddess', famous for her sultry looks and curvaceous figure was hot at any age. The only one who she failed to capture was Rock Hudson who 'fell asleep' when they became intimate, she told television interviewer, Larry King. 'It happens,' Lollobrigida said.

The stunning actress, nicknamed 'Lollo', a French word meaning 'beautiful breasts', was born in Subiaco in 1927. She came from a working-class family and grew up during the time of Mussolini and The Second World War. She told Allessandra Mattanza of US Italia in December, 2005, that her memories of childhood Christmases were not happy ones. 'Not very pleasant ones, unfortunately. I remember the war, the soldiers, the destroyed house. I had no toys‚ we weren't a rich family. The nicest Christmases came later.'' Lollobrigida's career began when she won a beauty contest. She was ambitious to become an actress, although she also liked being an art student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome where she studied sculpture and painting. She won parts in many Italian movies during the early fifties, including Fan-Fan the Tulip (1951), Beauties of the Night (1952), Infidelity (1952) and was excellent in The Wayward Wife (1952). But it was as the fiery temptress, 'Frisky', in the trilogy which began with 'Bread, Love and Dreams' (1953) that the young actress leapt to stardom in a widely praised performance. This was the first of the romantic Italian neorealist movies, realistic movies set amongst the working class. Her other famous movies included 'Trapeze' (1956), 'The Law' (1959) and 'Come September'. The Americans loved her and featured her on many magazine covers, including Time, Life and Redbook. Rumors of rivalry with another very famous Italian actress, Sophia Loren, only fueled media interest. Not all of her experiences in America were good, however. Humphrey Bogart was un-cooperative during the filming of 'Beat the Devil' (1953), directed by John Huston. He said that this was because he was not 'a bosom man' but he was also mean to Audrey Hepburn, who had a boyish figure. Surprisingly, however, her international career never reached the heights that it should have. Lollobrigida decided to return to her first love: Art. She became a skilled photographer and published many collections of photos, including Italia Mia and Wonder of Innocence. When she took photos for Italia Mia she dressed in the grudge look of the 1990's to disguise herself, but the workers of the Fiat plant in Turin and the Monofalcone shipyards recognized her and stopped production! She also became an accomplished sculptress. Her interest in sculpture was renewed when she and her husband, Milko Scofic, had a son, Milko. (They divorced in 1971) However, her acting career took priority and she only started sculpting seriously after she finished acting. Many famous artists, such as Salvador Dali and Jacob Epstein, asked her to pose for them during her acting career, and she watched the way that they worked. This helped her very much when she decided to pursue her career in art. Lollobrigida was very successful, both as a photographer and a sculptress, and her work was displayed at many public exhibitions, including the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow in 2003. Some of them can be seen at lollobrigida.com. "I studied painting and sculpting at school and became an actress by mistake," she once said.

A woman of many parts, her many careers also include journalism; she famously interviewed Fidel Castro and working as an executive for cosmetics companies. The actress and artist has also worked for many charities. She especially likes to help children because of her poor childhood. The former actress also ran as a candidate for the European Parliament, but was unsuccessful. Independent and feisty, Gina Lollobrigida had many romances. Men who are rumored to have been her lovers include Yul Brunner and heart surgeon, Dr. Christian Barnard. However, she doesn't think that it is necessary for a woman to have a man. Feminists would approve of this famous quote of the former actress. "Some women like to depend on a man; I don't want to depend on anybody. I just want my life to be based just on myself."

Sophia Loren

(Born September 20, 1934) She is an Academy Award winning Italian film actress. She is widely considered to be the most popular Italian actress of her time and is also famous for being a major international sex symbol. Loren was born Sofia Villani Scicolone at the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome on September 20, 1934 to Riccardo Scicolone and Romilda Villani. Riccardo refused to marry Romilda, leaving her, a piano teacher and aspiring actress, without support. Romilda, Sofia and sister Maria returned to Pozzuoli, near Naples, to live with Sofia's grandmother in order to survive. During World War II, the harbor and munitions plant in Pozzuoli was a frequent bombing target of the allies. During one raid, as Sofia ran to the shelter, she was struck by shrapnel and wounded in the chin. Subsequently the family moved to Naples and begged distant relatives to take them in. After the war, Sofia and her family returned to Pozzuoli. Grandmother Luisa opened their living room as a pub, selling homemade cherry liquor. Romilda played the piano, Maria sang and the shy Sofia waited tables and washed dishes. The place was very popular with the American GIs stationed nearby. When she was 14 years old, Sofia entered a beauty contest in Naples and, while not winning, was selected as one of the finalists. Later she enrolled in acting class and was selected as an extra in the Mervyn LeRoy film, Quo Vadis, thus launching her career as a motion picture actress. She would eventually change her name to Sophia Loren.

Eleonora Rossi Drago

(September 23, 1925 – December 2, 2007). Born Palmira Omiccioli, was an Italian film actress. She was born in Quinto al Mare, Genoa, Italy. She had the leading role in Michelangelo Antonioni's Le amiche. She worked with Pietro Germi in Un maledetto imbroglio. In 1960, for her performance in Valerio Zurlini's Estate violenta she won the best actress prize of the Mar del Plata Film Festival and Silver Ribbon. In 1964, she appeared in an adaptation of A. J. Cronin's novel, The Citadel. She died in Palermo, Italy.

Characterized as the classiest sex goddesses of 1950s Italian cinema, Eleonora Rossi Drago was renown for her beauty and unassuming talent. She was born near Genoa as Palma Omiccioli. She got her first job as a mannequin and then began designing couture herself. Though she had been unhappily married when she was younger, she entered a Miss Italy contest despite potentially being disqualified for that fact and came in fourth place. She moved to Rome shortly thereafter and landed her first roles. She became an instant star after two successful films directed by Comencini. Her career in film and stage spanned the 1950s and 1960s. She retired in the 70s and married a Sicilian businessman, Domenico La Cavera in 1973. She died from a cerebral hemorrhage last week.

Gianna Maria Canale

Canale was born in Reggio Calabria. In 1947, at the Miss Italia beauty contest, won by Lucia Bosè, she placed second. Canale received publicity in many Italian magazines after this.

Her looks were compared to those of Ava Gardner. Riccardo Freda offered her a role in a movie, and, after they fell in love, they got married in Brazil, where they shot two films.

Canale however was not used to living in South America and they came back to Italy, where, always directed by her husband, she starred in many peplum films, as well as Italian horror and adventure films. “I vampiri” was her last film with Freda. She retired from the movie industry in 1964.

Monica Anna Maria Bellucci

(Born September 30, 1964 or 1968). Bellucci was born in Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy the daughter of Maria Gustinelli, a painter, and Luigi Bellucci, who owned a trucking company. Bellucci started modelling at 16, when she was attending the Liceo classico. Initially pursuing a career as a lawyer, Bellucci modeled to pay her tuition at the University of Perugia, but the lifestyle tempted her away from her law studies. She speaks Italian, French, and English fluently, Spanish semi-fluently, and she has had speaking roles in each of these languages as well as in Aramaic for her part as Mary Magdalene in The Passion of the Christ.
Bellucci is married to fellow actor Vincent Cassel, with whom she has appeared in several films, and has a daughter named Deva (born September 12, 2004). In 2004, while pregnant with her daughter, Bellucci posed nude for the Italian Vanity Fair Magazine in protest against Italian laws that prevent the use of donor sperm.

Modeling

In 1988, Bellucci moved to one of Europe's fashion centers, Milan, where she signed with Elite Model Management. By 1989, she was becoming prominent as a fashion model in Paris and across the Atlantic, in New York City. She posed for Dolce & Gabbana and French ELLE, among others. In that year, Bellucci made the transition to acting and began taking acting classes. The February 2001 Esquire Magazine's feature on Desire featured Ms. Bellucci on the cover and in an article on the five senses. In 2003, she was featured in Maxim. In 2004, she topped AskMen's 100 Most Beautiful Women in the World annual list. Bellucci's modelling career is managed by Elite+ in NYC. She is considered an Italian sex symbol. She is currently a face of a range of Dior Cosmetics. Bellucci is also signed to Storm Model Management in London.

Maria Grazia Cucinotta

(Born July 27, 1969 in Messina, Sicily) is an Italian actress who has featured in many films and television series since 1990, she has also worked as a producer, scriptwriter and model.

She is well-known in Italy as a movie and television actress, but internationally she is best known for her roles in Il Postino and as the Bond girl the Cigar Girl in the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough.

She guest starred in The Sopranos episode "Isabella". She also appeared in The Simpsons episodes "The Italian Bob" and "Funeral for a Fiend" as Sideshow Bob's malicious wife, Francesca.

She married Giulio Violati in 1995, and they have one daughter, Giulia.