Monica Vitti

Born in the Italian capital, Maria Luisa Ceciarelli –her real name– was the daughter of a Sicilian and a woman from Bologna. At fourteen she made her theater debut playing a woman who loses her son in the war, in an amateur performance. She studied acting at the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome, where she was taught by the great Vittorio Gassman .. After graduating in 1953, he participates in feature films and some second-rate television productions, and undertakes a theatrical tour. “Theater is the most alive, magical and human art in the world”, he has declared. “When the lights go out and I begin to see the heads disappear in the dark and I can only feel the breath of the spectators, I feel happiness explode inside my heart. It is like leaving the dimension of reality to enter the magical kingdom of dreams for two hours”.

At the end of the decade, she met Michelangelo Antonioni , with whom she began a sentimental relationship, and who would direct her in performances at the Teatro Nuovo in Milan. In cinema, he gives her the main role in La aventura , where she plays Claudia, a wealthy woman who undertakes a yacht trip through the Mediterranean with Sandro, and Anna, his girlfriend, who will disappear while the other two take a nap on a volcanic island. . The film received the Jury Prize at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival, and established Monica Vitti internationally.

He repeated with Antonioni in the other two films that with that one form a trilogy about the existential void, The Night –where he gave life to the daughter of an industrialist–, and The Eclipse , where Vittoria was, who breaks up with her boyfriend, Riccardo ( Francisco Rabal ), to leave with Piero ( Alain Delon ). Her collaboration with this director was interrupted for many years with El desierto rojo , in which she was Giuliana, the wife of a factory owner, suffering from depression after a traffic accident. At this time she also shot Accattone , by Pier Paolo Pasolini , The Four Witches ,directed by Mauro Bolognini, Mario Monicelli, Luciano Salce and Antonio Pietrangeli and delights the general public starring Modesty Blaise , female super agent , by Joseph Losey , her first film in English, where she becomes a comic book heroine.

After her breakup with Antonioni, she stopped filming with him, although in 1980 she would star in The Mystery of Oberwald under his command . Tired of being cataloged as an actress specializing in drama, she lavishes herself on the comic field, with titles such as That Blonde Is Mine , and My Love, Help Me , both by Alberto Sordi , The Demon of Jealousy , by Ettore Scola, or The Girl of the pistol , by Mario Monicelli. She also has time to work with Luis Buñuel , as a supporting role in El fantasma de la libertad , and to play a woman who suspects that her husband has a lover in the drama Flirt , by Roberto Russo, for which she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress in Berlin.

At the end of the 80s, the newspaper “Le Monde” gave her up for dead. “The force that the press has is curious, because people believe that at least I have tried to commit suicide, with the desire to live that I have!”, She explained. “In fact, one day I phoned my mother to tell her that she was in Milan, and she replied that she didn’t believe me, that she was in Venice because she had read about it in a newspaper.” As revenge against the newspapers – although she denied that it was for that reason – she returned to the stage to star in Rome in one of the great satires of the media, “Primera flata”, the famous comedy by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur ., published in 1928, which has given rise to four film versions. Apparently, there were slaps to buy tickets. “The public seems enthusiastic,” he commented at the time. “Many young men tell me that they love that it doesn’t look like I’m acting, but that they feel like they’re looking at a normal woman. It’s just what the critics throw at me!” In 1990 she made her debut as a director with Secret Scandal , in which she also stars, but it was her last work for the big screen.

Jealous of her private life, Monica Vitt  always avoided appearing in the press, except for her professional activity. She also does not give many clues in her autobiography, “Sette Sottan”, published in 1995. It is known that after Antonioni she was linked to the cinematographer Carlo di Palma. In 1995 she married Roberto Russo, director and screenwriter. In 2000 she is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, so she retires from public life, and she spends her last years in Rome, cared for by her relatives. In 2011 the Festival of this city dedicated a tribute to him.