Birthday of Antonioni's Muse

On November 3, 1931, a girl was born in Rome named Maria Louise. And her last name was Ceciarelli.

Already at school, Maria Louise actively participated in theatrical productions. And at 16, she entered the National Academy of Dramatic Art Silvio D'Amico, which she graduated at 22. And then she began acting in films. True, at first - in episodic roles and with little-known directors.

Having become a professional actress, Maria Louise, as usual with representatives of creative professions, changed her name. She herself later explained this decision as follows: "My whole family went away to America to live. They said "How can you stay alone in Italy?" But I used their absence to become an actress. That's how I became Monica Vitti."

The change of name may have brought good luck to the actress: approximately in 1957, fate brought her together with Michelangelo Antonioni, already a rather famous film director in Italy at that time. As a result of this meeting, a creative and romantic duet was formed in which both partners served as the muse of the other. During the period from 1960 to 1964, 4 films were created: "L'avventura (The Adventure)", "La notte (The Night)", "L'eclisse (Eclipse)", "Il deserto rosso (Red Desert)", each of which became a phenomenon in Italian and world cinema. These 4 films brought worldwide fame both for Vitti and Antonioni. And it is this tetralogy that has been recognized as the pinnacle in the work of both.

In 1967, this creative and romantic union broke up. It is difficult to say whose fault this union broke up and whether someone was to blame, but literally the next year another man appeared in Vitti's life, 17 years younger than her, a photographer, and subsequently a film director, Roberto Russo.

Naturally, with the termination of relations with Antonioni, Vitti's creative biography did not stop (as well as Antonioni's creative biography). She switched to the comedy genre. And it was precisely for her roles in films of this genre that Monica Vitti received the most awards at Italian film festivals. In terms of the number of such awards, only Sophia Loren got more awards than Vitti. And it was in the films of the comedy genre that the mass Soviet audience first saw this actress: in 1970, we watched the film Mario Monicelli "La ragazza con la pistola (The Girl with a Pistol)" (for the role in this film Monica received the prize of the San Sebastian Film Festival), and in 1983 - the film "Io so che tu sai che io so (I Know That You Know That I Know)".

As for the above Antonioni masterpieces with the participation of Vitti, Soviet viewers could see them only after the beginning of perestroika. And this fact to some extent hid from the Soviet, and then from the Russian audience, the fact that at the turn of the 80s-90s, in general, absolutely not old Monica Vitti (what does mean 60 years for a world-famous movie star?!) disappeared both from the screens of movie theaters and from newspaper pages. Later it became known that in 1995 Monica Vitti and Roberto Russo, as they say, formalized their relationship. After 27 years in a so-called “civil marriage”.

And in the early 2000s, Roberto Russo revealed the reason for the retreat of Monica Vitti: Alzheimer's disease. And up to present he himself, not trusting medical institutions, provides care for his wife.

For her not so long creative biography, Monica Vitti starred in 51 full-length feature films. Five of these films (4 aforementioned Michelangelo Antonioni films plus Luis Bunuel's film “Le fantôme de la liberté (The Phantom of Liberty)”) are included in the FilmGourmand's Golden Thousand. On a base of this indicator, as well as the special, non-standard beauty, Monica Vitti is included in the list of 100 most beautiful and sexy Actresses of the world cinema.