Hot topics close

Monica Vitti: Italian actress dies aged 90 after suffering from dementia

Monica Vitti Italian actress dies aged 90 after suffering from dementia
Born Maria Luisa Ceciarelli in Rome in 1931, Vitti starred in a series of films made by director Michelangelo Antonioni. She made two English-language films, including a spy spoof, Modesty Blaise, with Terence Stamp and Dirk Bogarde in 1966.

Italian actress Monica Vitti has died at the age of 90 after reportedly suffering from dementia.

Born Maria Luisa Ceciarelli in Rome in 1931, she made two English-language films, including a spy spoof, Modesty Blaise, with Terence Stamp and Dirk Bogarde in 1966.

Before turning to comedies in the 1970s, Vitti starred in a series of movies made by director Michelangelo Antonioni, her lover at the time.

L'Avventura, La Notte, L'Eclisse, and Red Desert were described as a study of "modernity and its discontents".

In the first of them, released in 1960, Vitti played an ice cool woman who drifted into a relationship with the lover of a missing friend.

Monica Vitti and Jack Nicholson at the 9th Cesar Awards in Paris on March 3, 1984. (AP Photo/William Stevens)
pIC:AP
Image: Monica Vitti and Jack Nicholson at the 9th Cesar Awards in Paris in 1984. Pic: AP

In Red Desert, she played a character who struggles to deal with a transformed industrial world.

In a special screening at New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1999, Antonioni paid tribute to her performance.

"The protagonist, Giuliana, goes through a profound personal crisis because of her inability to adapt," he said.

In 1970, Vitti starred with Marcello Mastroianni in Dramma Della Gelosia, a rom-com.

Four years later, she won a David di Donatello award - the equivalent of an Italian Oscar - for best actress in Polvere Di Stelle, one of five such prizes in her career.

In 1995, the Venice Film Festival awarded her a Golden Lion award for career achievement.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said Vitti was an actress of "great irony and extraordinary talent, who won over generations of Italians with her spirit, bravura and beauty".

Similar news
News Archive
  • Winston Peters
    Winston Peters
    Chumbawamba tells NZ deputy PM Winston Peters to stop using its Tubthumping anthem
    20 Mar 2024
    5
  • Corinna Kopf
    Corinna Kopf
    Hungary's Fidesz moves against LGBT community with 2022 vote in sight
    10 Jun 2021
    1
  • Skyworks Solutions
    Skyworks Solutions
    Do Its Financials Have Any Role To Play In Driving Skyworks Solutions, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:SWKS) Stock Up Recently?
    17 Feb 2024
    1
  • James McAvoy
    James McAvoy
    James McAvoy's most famous roles, ranked
    29 Jan 2022
    16
This week's most popular news