VALENTINA CORTESE

(1 January 1923 - 10 July 2019)

The Italian actress Valentina Cortese, who has died aged 96, had to wait till after World War II before she became recognised as an actress of renown. After studying at the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome, from 1941 she began to appear in Italian films including The Hero of Venice, First Love and Girl of the Golden West. Her first big break came in 1946 and Rome Open City, an early neorealist film from Marcello Pagliero in which Cortese played a working girl forced to prostitute herself to earn a living. Among her other films was an Italian version of Les Misḗrables, and then in 1948 came The Glass Mountain, Henry Cass’s British film shot in Italy, which dealt with a British Air Force pilot (Michael Denison) shot down in Italy but rescued by a local girl (Cortese) with whom he falls in love. The romantic theme of the film and Nino Rota’s legendary score ensured its box-office success.

Black Magic with Orson Welles followed and then Hollywood beckoned as director Jules Dassin put her in Thieves’ Highway with Richard Conte and Lee J. Cobb. In the USA, Cortese made East of the Rising Sun (aka Malaya), Shadow of the Eagle and The House on Telegraph Hill in which Robert Wise cast her as a concentration camp survivor opposite her future husband Richard Basehart. She then made Thorold Dickinson’s thriller Secret People in 1952, after which she resumed her career in Italy. Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed her in The Barefoot Contessa with Humphrey Bogart, and she worked with Michelangelo Antonioni on Le Amiche. Mostly working in Italian films or others set in Italy, she was in Square of Violence with Broderick Crawford, Barabbas and The Visit, both with Anthony Quinn, Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits, Robert Aldrich’s The Legend of Lylah Clare, Maximilian Schell’s First Love, Franco Zeffirelli’s Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Joseph Losey’s The Assassination of Trotsky, François Truffaut’s Day for Night, James Goldstone’s When Time Ran Out... with Paul Newman and Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

She also worked in theatre in Italy, playing in Shakespeare, Chekhov, Brecht, Pirandello, Schiller and even Pinter. Her last film was Zeffirelli’s Sparrow in 1993. She also played Herodias in his TV series Jesus of Nazareth. Nominated for an Academy Award for Day for Night, Cortese lost out to Ingrid Bergman but she did win a Bafta, the National Society of Film Critics’ Award and the New York Film Critics’ Circle Award. She received the Milano International Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award and was made Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, France. Valentina Cortese married and divorced the actor Richard Basehart, who died in 1984. They had a son, Jackie, who died in 2015.

MICHAEL DARVELL