(1921-2006)
Actress. Born Baroness Alida Maria Altenburger in Pola (then Istria, now part of Croatia), Valli moved to Rome in 1935 to become one of the first students at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. She abandoned the Centro after only a year in order to take a small part in Enrico Guazzoni's I due sergenti (The Two Sergeants, 1936) and then a more substantial role in Mario Bonnard's Il feroce saladino (The Fierce Sultan, 1937), for which she first assumed the stage name of Alida Valli. In the following years she gained wide popularity playing the young innocent in a number of the so-called white telephone films and by the end of the 1930s had achieved star status. Her reputation as a serious actress was then consolidated by her moving interpretation of Luisa in Mario Soldati's Piccolo mondo antico (Old-Fashioned World, 1941), for which she received the Best Actress award at the Venice Festival, and her stirring performance as Kira in Goffredo Alessandrini's Noi vivi (We the Living, 1942).
Immediately after the war, Valli appeared in Mario Mattoli's La vita ricomincia (Life Begins Anew, 1945) and was again chosen by Soldati to play the lead in Eugenia Grandet (Eugenie Grandet, 1947), a performance that brought her a Nastro d'argento and also to the attention of David O. Selznick, who lured her to Hollywood to play opposite Gregory Peck in Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947). After again playing the female lead opposite Fred MacMurray and a very young Frank Sinatra in Irving Pichel's The Miracle of the Bells (1948), she was called to England to play Anna Schmidt in Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949).
Having returned to Europe in the early 1950s, she made a number of minor films, both in Italy and in France, before providing one of the best performances of her career as the Countess Livia Serpieri in Luchino Visconti's Senso (The Wanton Countess, 1954). She was subsequently the protagonist's wife, Rosetta, in Gillo Pontecorvo's debut film, La grande strada azzurra (The Wide Blue Road, 1957), Irma in Michelangelo Antonioni's Il grido (The Outcry, 1957), Queen Merope in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Edipo Re (Oedipus Rex, 1967), and then Draifa, the enigmatic former mistress of the protagonist's father, in Bernardo Bertolucci's La strategia del ragno (The Spider's Stratagem, 1970). In the following years, while continuing to work with auteurs like Valerio Zurlini—she was Vanina's mother in La prima notte di quiete (The Professor, 1972)—and with Bertolucci again in Novecento (1900, 1976) and La luna (Luna, 1979), she also took on cameo roles in a number of B-grade horror thrillers such as Mario Bava's La casa dell'esorcismo (The House of Exorcism, 1973), Pierre Grunstein's Tendre Dracula (Tender Dracula, 1974), and Giulio Berruti's Suor omicidi (Killer Nun, 1978). She is particularly remembered by horror buffs for her part as Miss Tanner in Dario Argento's horror classic Suspiria (1977). From the mid-1950s onward she alternated between film and theater and often appeared on television, both in Italy and abroad. After hosting the television music show Music Rama (1966), she also tried her hand at producing and codirecting the documentary L'amore in tutte le sue espressioni (Love in All Its Manifestations, 1968). She continued to work throughout the 1980s and 1990s, although mostly in supporting roles, earning a David di Donatello for Best Supporting Actress in Marco Tullio Giordana's La Caduta degli angeli ribelli (The Fall of the Rebellious Angels, 1981), and a year later the Italian theater critics' Ennio Flaiano Award for her performance onstage in the Renaissance comedy La Venexiana. After a host of other prizes and recognitions, including the honorific title of Cavaliere della Repubblica, she was awarded a David di Donatello for her career achievements in 1991 and in 1997 a Golden Lion at the Venice Festival for her contribution to world cinema.
Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema by Alberto Mira
Guide to cinema. Academic. 2011.