Birthday: Jan 1, 1925

Birthplace: Milan, Lombardy, Italy

Biography: Valentina Cortese was born in Milan, Lombardy, Italy, in 1925. She
made her movie debut in 1940 and played many "ingenue" parts in Italian
films of that period, before making a real sensation in _Miserabili, I
(1947)_, playing both female leads, Fantine and Cosette (the film was a
competent screen adaptation of the Victor Hugo classic). The international
success of the British-made melodrama The Glass Mountain (1949) brought her
some Hollywood offers: she was very sensual as a truck-driver... ... (read more...) 's mistress in
Jules Dassin's film noir Thieves' Highway (1949) and particularly effective
in Robert Wise's thriller The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), in which she
portrayed a girl pursued by a killer. She then returned to Europe and worked
with many great directors, like Michelangelo Antonioni, who cast her in his
Amiche, Le (1955), and Federico Fellini, who gave her a supporting part in
his surrealist fantasy Giulietta degli spiriti (1965). She had an especially
robust part in Francois Truffaut's _Nuit Américaine, La (1973)_ as a fading
alcoholic movie star (she won a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award
Nomination for this). She also followed a fruitful stage career, working
with directors like Giorgio Strehler and Franco Zeffirelli and starring in
plays like Schiller's "Mary Stewart" (title role) and Wedekind's "Lulu"
(title role).