Valentina Cortese

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Valentina Elena Cortese Rossi di Coenzo (1 January 1923 – 10 July 2019), sometimes credited as Valentina Cortesa,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> was an Italian film and theatre actress.<ref name="Guardian">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="MC">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Formenti">Template:Cite book</ref> Her screen career spanned over 100 productions across over five decades, from 1941 until 1993. Cortese won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and was nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, for her performance in the film Day for Night (1973). In 2013, she received the French Order of Arts and Letters.

Over the course of her career, Cortese worked with many important Italian and international directors, including Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Franco Zeffirelli, François Truffaut, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Terry Gilliam.<ref name="Guardian" /> She was also active on stage, particularly in the company of Giorgio Strehler. Critic Morando Morandini described her as "one of the last divas of Italian theatre.... a mix of floral liberty, subdued decadence, belated D'Annunzio-ism and neurotic modern sensibility."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Early years

Cortese in Appassionata (1974)

Cortese was born on New Year's Day in Milan. Her parents were Olga Cortese and Napoleone Rossi di Coenzo, of noble origins.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Cortese's father abandoned her mother shortly before her birth, and she was raised by her mother in the countryside, before being sent to Turin to live with her maternal grandparents in 1930.<ref name="Guardian" /><ref name="MC" /><ref name="Formenti"/>

After meeting conductor Victor de Sabata in 1940, then married with children and 31 years her senior, she quit high school and followed him to Rome, where she enrolled at (and later graduated from) the National Academy of Dramatic Arts (Accademia d'arte drammatica).<ref name="MC" />

Career

She first appeared on stage before receiving a contract at Scalera Film in 1941<ref name="MC" /> and giving her film debut with a small role in L'orizzonte dipinto.<ref name="Formenti" />

Cortese's first important film roles were in Roma Città Libera (1946), Les Misérables and The Wandering Jew (both 1948).<ref name="Guardian" /> 1948 also saw the end of her relationship with de Sabata.<ref name="MC" /> Her appearance in the British production The Glass Mountain (1949) led to numerous roles in international productions, including Jules Dassin's Thieves' Highway (1949), chosen by her then-partner Dassin over the originally cast Shelley Winters,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> and Robert Wise's The House on Telegraph Hill (1951).<ref name="Guardian" /> In 1951, she married her co-star on The House on Telegraph Hill Richard Basehart, with whom she returned to Italy.<ref name="Guardian" /> Cortese continued to appear in national and international productions; the most notable of this era include Joseph Mankiewicz's The Barefoot Contessa (1954) and Michelangelo Antonioni's Le Amiche (1955).<ref name="Guardian" /> For the latter, she received the Nastro d'Argento for Best Supporting Actress.<ref name="Film_Prizes">Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1960, Cortese and Basehart divorced, and Basehart returned to the US, leaving in her custody their only child, Jackie.<ref name="Guardian" /> In the following years, she worked for directors as diverse as Mario Bava (The Girl Who Knew Too Much, 1963), Bernhard Wicki (The Visit, 1964), Federico Fellini (Juliet of the Spirits, 1965), Robert Aldrich (The Legend of Lylah Clare, 1968) and Joseph Losey (The Assassination of Trotsky, 1972).<ref name="Guardian" /> For her performance in François Truffaut's Day for Night (1973) she received the BAFTA Award,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the National Society of Film Critics Award<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the New York Film Critics Circle Award,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and was nominated for the Academy Award which ultimately went to Ingrid Bergman.<ref name="Guardian" /><ref name="MC" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In her acceptance speech, Bergman remarked that she felt Cortese should have won the award.<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Cbignore</ref>

While her later films were mostly of lesser artistic interest, Cortese was continuously successful on stage,<ref name="Guardian" /> working with Giorgio Strehler, with whom she had a long-lasting relationship,<ref name="Guardian" /><ref name="MC" /> Franco Zeffirelli,<ref name="Guardian" /><ref name="MC" /> Luchino Visconti<ref name="Guardian" /> and Patrice Chéreau.<ref name="Formenti"/> In 1980, she married industrialist Carlo De Angeli.<ref name="MC" /> Her last film was Zeffirelli's 1993 Sparrow.<ref name="Guardian" />

In 2017, Francesco Patierno documented her life in the film Diva!, based on her 2012 autobiography Quanti sono i domani passati ("How many tomorrows have gone by").<ref name="Guardian" />

Death

Cortese died on 10 July 2019, aged 96.<ref name="Guardian" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Selected filmography

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References

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