Alida Valli (31 May 1921 – 22 April
2006), sometimes simply credited
as Valli, was an Italian actress
who appeared in more than 100
films, including Mario Soldati's
Piccolo mondo antico, Alfred
Hitchcock's The Paradine Case,
Carol Reed's The Third Man,
Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Grido,
Luchino Visconti's Senso,
Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 and
Dario Argento's Suspiria.
Valli was born in Pola, Istria, Italy (today Pula, Croatia).
Her paternal grandfather was the Baron Luigi Altenburger,
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, was the daughter of Felix Oberecker from
Laibach, Austria (now Ljubljana, Slovenia), her mother
was Virginia della Martina from Pola, Istria (then part of
Austria). Valli's maternal granduncle, Rodolfo, was a close
friend of Gabriele d'Annunzio. Valli was christened
Baroness Alida Maria Laura Altenburger von
Marckenstein-Frauenberg of the Holy Roman Empire of
the German Nation. She also gained the titles Dr.h.c. of the
III. University of Rome, Chevalier of Arts of France and
Cavaliere of the Italian Republic.
At fifteen, she went to Rome, where she attended the Centro Sperimentale
di Cinematografia, a school for film actors and directors. At that time, she
lived with her uncle Ettore Tolomei. Valli started her movie career in 1934,
in Il cappello a tre punte (The Three Cornered Hat) during the so called
Telefoni Bianchi cinema era. Her first big success came with the movie
Mille lire al mese. After many roles in a large number of comedies, she
earned her success as dramatic actress in Piccolo mondo antico (1941),
directed by Mario Soldati, for which she won a special Best Actress award
at Venice Film Festival. During the Second World War, she starred in many
movies including Stasera niente di nuovo (1942) (whose song "Ma l'amore
no" became the leitmotif of the Italian forties) and the diptych Noi Vivi /
Addio Kira! (1943) (based on Ayn Rand's novel We the Living). These latter
two movies were nearly censored by the Italian government under Benito
Mussolini, but they were finally permitted because the novel upon which
were based was anti-Soviet. The films were successful, and the public
easily realized that they were as much against Fascism as Communism.
After several weeks, however, the films were pulled from theaters as
the German and Italian governments, which abhorred communism,
found out the story also carried an anti-fascist message.Valli had a
career in English language films through David Selznick, who signed
her to a contract, thinking that he had found a second Ingrid
Bergman. In Hollywood, she performed in several movies: she was
the murder suspect Maddalena Paradine in Alfred Hitchcock's The
Paradine Case (1947), and the mysterious Czech refugee wanted by
the Russians in post-war Vienna in Carol Reed's The Third Man
(1949). But her foreign experience was not a great success due to
the financial problems of Selznick's production company. 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 1997 Venice Film Festival
Alida Valli obtained the Golden Lion award for her career.
Valli's movie career suffered in 1953 from a
scandal surrounding the death of Wilma
Montesi, a fashion model.
Alida Valli had two sons with her husband
Oscar de Mejo.
Valli's death at her home on 22 April 2006 was
announced by the office of the mayor of Rome,
Walter Veltroni, whose statement read, "The
Italian cinema has lost one of its most intense
and striking faces". Another official statement
by the Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
read, "La scomparsa di Alida Valli è una grave
perdita per il cinema, il teatro e la cultura
italiana" ("The death of Alida Valli is a great loss
for Italian cinema, theatre and culture").
Cinema
• The Paradine Case (1947)
• The Third Man (1949)
• The Miracle of the Bells (1948)
Television
• L'altro Simenon (series, 1979)
• Dramma d'amore (serial, 1983)
Theatre
(The Third Man)
• I paraventi (1990), Jean Genet (Les paravents)
• Improvvisamente l'estate scorsa (1991), Tennessee Williams (Suddenly
Last Summer)
Made By :
Tarushi Pathak
and
Aagosh Saluja