Celebrity Biographies
Valentina Cortése
She was nominated for an Oscar for best secondary for François Truffaut’s “American Night”, shared the screen with Orson Welles and Ava Gardner, and worked under the orders of Alessandro Blasetti, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Terry Gilliam and even Luis García. Berlanga. Valentina Cortese passed away in Milan on July 10, 2019, at the age of 96. She was considered the last of the divine, the actresses who succeeded in post-war Italy.
She was born in that northern Italian city on the first day of the year 1923. From a very young age she became one of the great ladies of the Italian theater; after her triumph at the legendary Piccolo Teatro di Milano, with titles such as “Maria Estuardo” by Schiller and “Lulu” by Frank Wedekind.
He began his journey in the cinema with the forgotten Orizzonte dipinto, by Guido Salvini. But she began to stand out in the romantic drama La cena delle beffe , by Alessandro Blasetti , which would recruit her again for Nessuno torna indietro . She then moved to Hollywood, where she co-starred with James Stewart and Spencer Tracy in Malacca , and Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart in The Barefoot Contessa , and with Orson Welles in Cagliostro . In Europe she triumphed with Las amigas , by Michelangelo Antonioni ,Giulietta of the spirits ,by Fellini, and La noche americana , by Truffaut, where he gave life to Séverine, a star from a bygone era who stars in the film that is shot in fiction, although she forgot its text. The Spanish Luis García Berlanga recruited her to give life to Eloísa, the single teacher from the town in Calabuch .
After starring in the thriller The House on the Hill , by Robert Wise , she fell in love with her co-star, Richard Basehart , whom she married in 1960. Both were parents of Jack Basehart , also an actor, but would divorce in 1960.
During her last active years, she stood out in Terry Gilliam ‘s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , where she played Queen Ariadne. She said goodbye to the screen with La novice , directed in 1993 by Franco Zeffirelli , where she played the mother superior of the convent of which the protagonist, played by Angela Bettis , became a part .