Alida Valli

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Alida Valli (1947)
Alida Valli signature.svg

Alida Valli , actually Alida Maria Laura Altenburger von Marckenstein and Frauenberg (born May 31, 1921 in Pola , Istria , then Italy ; † April 22, 2006 in Rome ), was an Italian actress of old Austrian origin. She was an international movie star in the 1940s and 1950s with her roles in The Paradin Case (1947), The Third Man (1949), Sehnsucht (1954), and Eyes Without a Face (1960).

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On her father's side, Alida Valli came from an old Austro-Italian noble family from Trento and on her mother's side of the old Italian-Istrian family della Martina from the marine and port town of Pola (today Pula / Pola in Istria , Croatia ). Her father, Baron Gino von Altenburger, was a teacher of history and philosophy at the kk Staats-Real-Gymnasium and after 1918 under Italian rule at the Italian high school "Giosuè Carducci" in Pola. Her mother Silvia Oberecker della Martina was of German-Italian descent, attended the German humanistic kk Staats-Real-Gymnasium in Pola and then studied at the conservatory in Laibach . She later gave piano lessons. Alida attended the Dante Alighieri Elementary School in Pola. She spent her childhood with the family in Istria, Trentino and South Tyrol . The family moved to Como in the late 1920s .

At the age of 15, Valli took on minor roles in Italian films and from then on used her stage name. Soon she became the most popular and sought-after actress in Italy and was known as “La Fidanzata d'Italia” (The Fiancée of Italy). The song Ma l'amore no , sung by her in the 1942 film Stasera niente di nuovo, was for years the most successful and most frequently played song in Italy. In the same year, her fiancé Carlo Cugnasca fell as a pilot in Libya. In 1943 she worked alongside Beniamino Gigli in the German-Italian co-production of the film I pagliacci (Lache, Bajazzo) based on the opera by Ruggiero Leoncavallo . Not only the Nazi dictatorship in Germany, but also fascism in Italy tried to use the actors for propaganda purposes . Valli did not want to participate and therefore initially refrained from any production.

In 1944 she married the jazz musician Oscar de Mejo , with whom she had two sons. After the war she made several films in Italy again, including La vita ricomincia . She played the leading role in the film Eugenia Grandet (1946) and, due to her success, got a contract offer from Hollywood from producer David O. Selznick , who wanted to build her up as the second Greta Garbo . In the role of Magdalena Paradine in Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradin Case (1947) one had thought of Garbo, but she refused; she had retired from the film business. Then the role of Alida Valli was offered.

In addition to Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten , she then played the leading female role in the famous Graham Greene film The Third Man (1949, director: Carol Reed ), with which she achieved her international breakthrough. Subsequently, Selznick only gave her minor roles , as Selznick had enormous financial difficulties. Valli did not find this beneficial for her career and so she decided to end the contract with Selznick. In order to be able to return to Europe, she accepted a heavy fine.

Not only did she break up with Hollywood, but also with her husband, who wanted to stay in the States and became an American citizen. She returned to Italy with her two sons, where she directed the masterpiece Senso under Luchino Visconti, which would mark the high point of her career. She also made successful films with Bernardo Bertolucci . In the 1900 film , she appeared alongside Gérard Depardieu and Robert De Niro .

In 1954 Valli was embroiled in a scandal from the Roman dolce vita milieu: A young woman, Wilma Montesi , was found dead on a beach near Rome. Among other things, the jazz musician Piero Piccioni, son of the then Italian Foreign Minister, was suspected of being responsible for Wilma's death. Also Moritz of Hesse (Maurizio d'Assia), the son of Italian princess Princess Mafalda di Savoia , was involved in the scandal. Piccioni was exonerated by a statement from Alida Valli, who was friends with him and who at the time in question had spent the weekend at the house of producer Carlo Ponti ( Sophia Loren's later husband ) in Amalfi. The incident could not be resolved, all suspects were eventually acquitted of the murder charge. The trial of a suspected murder victim who had brought to light abuses such as corruption, drug abuse and sexual entanglements among politicians, aristocrats and celebrities, but was largely based on questionable evidence and speculation and was accompanied by the gossip press nationwide, was a milestone of Italian post-war history. But Valli, who actually only played a minor role in the case, had given one of the main suspects a questionable alibi and thus turned public opinion against her, a flaw that cast a shadow over her further career. The press hype in the Montesi case about Italian high society inspired Federico Fellini to write his film La dolce vita ( The sweet life ) .

Valli continued her acting work, also in the theater. In 1971, for example, she played Countess Geschwitz in Frank Wedekind's Lulu in a production by Patrice Chéreau at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan . She also shone in pieces by Gabriele D'Annunzio and Henrik Ibsen .

In 1999 Valli took part in the Austrian television film Vino Santo , directed by Xaver Schwarzenberger . She was seen in several Italian and French television productions, most recently in the film Semana Santa (2002). In total, she took part in more than 130 cinema and television productions.

Alida Valli died early in the morning on April 22, 2006 at her home in Rome at the age of 84. The official farewell took place two days later at the headquarters of the Roman Senate on Campidoglio (Capitol Square) and in the nearby church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli with great sympathy. She was buried in the Verano cemetery in Rome.

Filmography (selection)

watch TV

  • 1959: I Figli di Medea
  • 1961: Il caso Mauritius
  • 1963: Combat! (TV series, 1 episode)
  • 1964: Desencuentro (TV series)
  • 1964: Dr. Kildare (TV series, 3 episodes)
  • 1974: Il consigliere imperiale
  • 1978: Les grandes conjurations: Le tumulte d'Amboise
  • 1979: L'altro Simenon (TV series)
  • 1980: L'eredità della priora (TV series)
  • 1983: Dramma d'amore (TV series)
  • 1989: Piccolo mondo antico (TV series)
  • 1992: Una vita in gioco 2 (TV series)
  • 1993: Murder in Tuscany

Web links

Commons : Alida Valli  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Plass: Alida Valli . Alida Valli. Archived from the original on June 10, 2010. Retrieved September 19, 2010.
  2. ↑ Text and melody: Archive link ( Memento from May 20, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ The dead woman on the beach . Faz.Net. April 27, 2006. Retrieved September 19, 2010.
  4. ↑ La dolce vita ( Memento from March 15, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) in the Dirk Jasper FilmLexikon
personal data
SURNAME Valli, Alida
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Von Marckenstein and Frauenberg, Baroness Alida Maria Laura Altenburger (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian actress
DATE OF BIRTH May 31, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Pola , Istria peninsula , then Italy
DATE OF DEATH April 22, 2006
Place of death Rome , Italy