Monica Vitti, the versatile movie star of Michelangelo Antonioni\u2019s L\u2019Avventura and other Italian alienation films of the 1960s, and later a leading comic actress, has died. She was 90.<\/p>\n
Her death was announced Wednesday on Twitter by a former culture minister, Walter Veltroni, who said he had been asked to communicate her death by her husband, the photographer Roberto Russo.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoodbye to the queen of Italian cinema,\u201d the current culture minister, Dario Franceschini, wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n
Vitti had been out of the public spotlight for years, living quietly in Rome with her husband. She reportedly suffered from a form of dementia.
\nIn her glamour days in the 1960s, she was best known for her starring roles in L\u2019Avventura, La Notte, Eclisse (\u201cEclipse\u201d) and Red Desert, all films directed by Antonioni, her lover at that time. The two were constant targets of paparazzi.<\/p>\n
L\u2019Avventura won her international attention and praise for her role as an icy cool woman drifting into a relationship with the lover of her missing girlfriend. In Red Desert, the last of the cycle, she plays a woman suffering from a deep, elusive neurosis as she struggled to deal with a transformed industrial world.<\/p>\n
Vitti\u2019s blond hair and blue eyes set her apart from classic Mediterranean screen stars such as the brown-haired Sophia Loren.<\/p>\n
Antonioni himself paid tribute to her performance at a special screening in New York\u2019s Museum of Modern Art in 1999 to mark completion of a restoration project for Italian film.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe protagonist, Giuliana, goes through a profound personal crisis because of her inability to adapt,\u201d he said, in remarks read by his wife, Enrica.
\nAfter Vitti\u2019s relationship with Antonioni ended, they didn\u2019t work together again until 1980. At that point, she changed focus sharply and began making comedies, working with top directors and some of Italy\u2019s leading actors, including Alberto Sordi, a tragi-comic one, in films whose characters often personified Italians\u2019 strengths and foibles.<\/p>\n
While many of the films didn\u2019t gain international distribution or acclaim, her performances were greeted with success at home.<\/p>\n
In 1970, Vitti starred with Marcello Mastroianni in Ettore Scola\u2019s romantic comedy Dramma della gelosia (\u201cThe Pizza Triangle\u201d). In 1974, she won the equivalent of an Italian Oscar, a David di Donatello award, for best actress in Sordi\u2019s Polvere di Stelle, one of five such prizes in her career.<\/p>\n
She starred in Luis Bunuel\u2019s Le Fantome de la liberte (\u201cThe Phantom of Liberty\u201d) in 1974, a surrealistic treatment of middle-class hypocrisies, considered her last major film.<\/p>\n
Her versatility distinguished her from other actresses of her period.
\nIn a memorable scene in Amore mio aiutami (\u201cHelp me, my love\u201d), she and Sordi roll in the sand trading slaps and punches. In one of her only two English-language films, she found herself in a spy spoof with Terence Stamp and Dirk Bogarde in the 1966 Modesty Blaise.<\/p>\n
Vitti was born as Maria Luisa Ceciarelli in Rome in 1931. As a teenager, she appeared in amateur stage productions, then studied as an actor in Rome\u2019s National Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her first film role was in Scola\u2019s Ridere Ridere Ridere (\u201cLaugh Laugh Laugh\u201d) in 1954. Her last was Scandalo Segreto in 1989, which she wrote, directed and starred in.<\/p>\n
Her reclusive life led to much speculation about the state of her health. In 1988, Le Monde reported she died from an overdose of barbiturates. She was very popular in France and her fans were outraged.<\/p>\n
Her last public appearance was in 2002 for the premiere of Notre Dame de Paris.<\/p>\n
In 1995, the Venice Film Festival awarded her a Golden Lion award for career achievement.<\/p>\n
Italian Premier Mario Draghi remembered Vitti as \u201can actress of great irony and extraordinary talent, who won over generations of Italians with her spirit, bravura and beauty. She brought prestige to the Italian cinema around the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monica Vitti, the versatile movie star of Michelangelo Antonioni\u2019s L\u2019Avventura and other Italian alienation films of the 1960s, and later a leading comic actress, has died. She was 90. Her death was announced Wednesday on Twitter by a former culture minister, Walter Veltroni, who said he had been asked to communicate her death by her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-memorial"],"yoast_head":"\n