Stars

Gina Lollobrigida – the temptress of the Tiber

1958. Gina Lollobrigida in Solomon and Sheba. Photo by Leo Fuchs. Read more.

Gina Lollobrigida was one of the great international sex symbols of postwar cinema.

In its January 1956 issue, Modern Screen magazine reported that:

L’Italienne is downright gorgeous but you can find others just as beautiful. But she is currently the most important international star. Almost single-handed, Gina of the unpronounceable last name has lifted the Italian film industry up to glossy respectability and reasonable solvency.

The “unpronounceable last name” was regularly abbreviated to La Lollo, and a few websites suggest that the frilly red lettuce lollo rosso was named after her tousled coiffure or even her panties – seriously?

The previous year she had played the title role in La donna più bella del mondo (literally, The Most Beautiful Woman in the World but released to English-speaking audiences as Beautiful But Dangerous). It was a sobriquet enthusiastically embraced both by the star herself and by the salivating media.

And before that, in October 1954, Pane, amore e fantasia (Bread, Love and Jealousy) had been the hit of Italian Film Week in London and Gina had been presented to the Queen. It was an early triumph but also a reminder that she had competition. At the premiere she had been rather upstaged by another upwardly mobile actress, Sophia Loren, who had drawn attention with a daringly low-cut gown. Swords had been crossed and the feud continued for decades.

Until the mid-fifties Gina had been seen mostly in Italian films but she was about to star in a series of hit movies made for the US market that would transform her hitherto limited fan base – films like Trapeze (1956), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1956) and Solomon and Sheba (1959).

In a career that stretched from 1946 to 2011, IMDb credits Gina with 69 appearances on screen. While the movies in which she starred vary in quality, they demonstrate her flexibility as an actress, perfectly at home in serious drama, romantic comedy and high farce. Although she was always considered more a sex symbol than a serious actress, she won more than a dozen awards including three for best actress at the David di Donatello awards (Italy’s equivalent of the Oscars).

Around 1955. Gina Lollobrigida snapped by a paparazzo. Read more.

Growing up

Gina Lollobrigida is born in 1927, one of four daughters whose father is a furniture maker. Towards the end of World War II, their home is destroyed by Allied air attacks and the family moves to Rome, where they end up living in a single room. Gina would tell the Associated Press in 1994:

I know what it is to be hungry. I know what it is to lose your home. I remember when I had fear. I know what it is to grow up never having a toy.

To get an impression of the poverty and desperation around at the time, you have only to watch Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 neorealist film Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves).

After school, Gina has lessons in singing, dancing and drawing. To help pay for these, she does sketches of American GIs and part-time work modelling for comics. And it turns out that there’s another opportunity too. In her own words as reported in La Stampa (a newspaper) in 2001:

I had two directors stop me twice outside of my school and ask if I wanted to be in movies. Curiosity led me to make appearances in two or three films. Then when I was offered the lead role in Love of a Clown [based on the opera Pagliacci] I absolutely refused.
My final strategy for getting them to leave me alone was to ask to be paid one million [lire], which was a lot compared to the 1,000 I earned for secondary roles. I thought this would be enough to discourage anyone. To my great surprise they accepted and this is how I began my cinema career.

Or perhaps not so surprising given her hourglass figure, her sultry looks and the reputation she’s built already for diligently learning her lines and taking her work seriously. Pagliacci – Amore tragico is released in 1948 and she’s on her way to stardom.

Gina Lollobrigida at the Cannes Film Festival

1958. Gina Lollobrigida, surrounded by photographers, makes an entrance at the Cannes Film Festival.

Gina Lollobrigida conversion behind the scenes as director John Sturges looks on

Gina Lollobrigida behind the scenes

1959. Gina Lollobrigida conversing behind the scenes of Never So Few. Director John Sturges (wearing glasses) looks on.

Gina Lollobrigida with her minder

Around 1960. Is that Gina Lollobrigida's minder behind her or someone else? Unfortunately the caption is missing from the back of the photo. Photo by Leo Fuchs.

Gina Lollobrigida dining with André Maurois

1965. Gina Lollobrigida dining with French author André Maurois at the Cannes Film Festival.

Gina Lollobrigida and Milko Skofic

The following year she marries a doctor from Slovenia (then part of Yugoslavia) who is helping refugees temporarily being put up at Rome’s Cinecittà film studios. Throughout the fifties, the couple are more or less inseparable, their relationship reported with a mix of enthusiasm and implicit astonishment by various movie magazines such as Modern Screen. This is from an article, Gina Lollobrigida and her backstage husband, which appears in the January 1956 edition:

For eight of her 27 years she’s been married to the same man, Dr. Milko Skofic. They say the Skofics don’t have trouble because the good doctor is so madly jealous he never leaves his glamorous wife’s side long enough for trouble to begin. Well, he’s only in Paris (where Gina’s making Trapeze with Lancaster and Curtis) on week ends but Gina just isn’t interested in anyone but Milko.
Skofic has not yet lived down the decision they both made soon after the marriage. He chose to manage his wife’s career instead of continuing his medical practice. As a foreigner and a refugee he was faced with difficulties in reestablishing himself. But Gina’s star was rising and she needed advice. She still does.

Gina Lollobrigida being laced into a corset for a scene from Crossed Swords

Hourglass Gina

1954. Her dresser laces Gina Lollobrigida's corset to emphasize her already voluptuous curves. You can see the result in Il maestro di Don Giovanni (Crossed Swords, 1954) in which Gina stars opposite Errol Flynn. This photo is reproduced in the January 1954 issue of Screenland magazine to illustrate an article called It’s True What They Say About Gina.

Gina Lollobrigida in La romana

1954. Gina Lollobrigida as Adriana Silenzi in La romana (Woman of Rome).

Gina Lollobrigida in La romana

1954. Gina Lollobrigida as Adriana Silenzi in La romana (Woman of Rome).

Gina Lollobrigida arriving at The Tivoli

1954. Gina Lollobrigida arriving at The Tivoli. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

The Italian Film Festival opened last night at the Tivoli with the film “Neapolitan Fantasy”. Italian film stars were presented to the Queen who along with the Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Margaret attended the performance.
PS: “La Lollo” they call her in her native Italy – Gina Lollobrigida arriving at the Tivoli

But the marriage gets off to a tricky start.

1958. Gina Lollobrigida in Solomon and Sheba. Photo by Leo Fuchs.

Howard Hughes and Hollywood

And that tricky start is down to studio boss and arch-womaniser Howard Hughes. Gina catches his famously roving eye – accounts differ as to exactly how – and she’s summoned by him to Hollywood for a screen test. She asks for a pair of tickets so that Milko can go with her but she ends up setting off on her own. It’s possible that’s because he can’t get a US visa but more likely because he’d get in the way of Hughes’ seduction routine. So just the one ticket turns up.

When she arrives Hughes sets her up in a suite at a luxurious hotel on Wilshire Boulevard and arranges an English teacher and a voice coach for her. At this point in her life she knows very little English.

And then he gets down to the real business – embarking on an affair. She’s not allowed out except in his company, of which there’s plenty on offer. Hughes arranges a series of dates, a priority being to avoid any media attention. So they end up eating at cheap diners or even, sometimes, in his car. As part of the entertainment he teaches her to swear.

She gets increasingly frustrated and desperate. After two and a half months of these goings-on and with no movie-making in sight, she agrees to sign a seven-year contract, Hughes’ condition for letting her go home. The terms of the contract all but prevent her from making a film with any other studio in the US. The get-out, such as it is, is that she can star in American films shot outside the US.

That’s handy as the Hollywood studios are beginning to take advantage of the talent and lower production costs available in Europe and particularly at Cinecittà. Beat the Devil (1953) in which she stars opposite Humphrey Bogart is shot in Italy and directed by John Huston. The following year, Gina appears on the front cover of the August 16 issue of TIME magazine

Gina Lollobrigida (pronounced low-low-bridge-id-ah) was in town to make a movie. And who is Gina? Hardly anywhere in the world today except in the U.S., could such a question be asked. In Europe she is the most famous seven syllables since “Come up and see me some time.”

Gina Lollobrigida in La romana

1954. Gina Lollobrigida as Adriana Silenzi in La romana (Woman of Rome).

Gina Lollobrigida in La romana

1954. Gina Lollobrigida as Adriana Silenzi in La romana (Woman of Rome).

Gina Lollobrigida on the set of La legge

1958. Gina Lollobrigida in a décolleté top on the set of La legge (The Law).

Gina Lollobrigida filming La bellezza di Ippolita

1962. Gina Lollobrigida, uncharacteristically blonde, filming La bellezza di Ippolita (She Got What She Asked For) in Rome.

Beat the Devil is the first of a string of English-language films that propel her to megastar status in the US. Indeed such a desirable property that, in an interview quoted in The Scotsman:

When I finally returned to America to do a film with Sinatra, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had to pay $75,000 to Howard Hughes. The Hollywood contracts I had were truly a dream. They gave me everything I wanted. I had approval of the cast, the director, the producer, and I got quite a significant percentage of overall earnings. When I went to do a film, I’d take my husband, my son, my nanny, my seamstress, my hairdresser, and my ‘lady-in-waiting’, a French countess who helped me perfect languages.

During the sixties, Gina stars in one movie after another, many of them romantic comedies, opposite the likes of Ernest Borgnine, Sean Connery and Bob Hope. Most of those films are both unmemorable and lucrative.

1956. Gina Lollobrigida as Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Gina Lollobrigida – anything but “the girl next door”

The emergence of Silvana Mangano, Anna Magnani, Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren as major stars prompts a piece in the August 1957 issue of Photoplay magazine titled What has she got that Hollywood hasn’t?:

While there is a great shortage of female stars in Hollywood the dismal truth is that there hasn’t been a major American actress of star calibre to burst on the scene, outside of Kim Novak, since Grace Kelly. Part of the answer seems to be that all the girls who show up in Hollywood these days turn out to be a replica of the girl next door. And about as glamorous. Pigtails and jeans may turn a head or two on Main Street but they don’t cause a stampede at the box office. … In the impact of the foreign stars on the American public, Italy continues to play the biggest role.

Three years earlier, Gina’s arrival in the US was hotly anticipated in an article in the January 1954 edition of Screenland magazine – It’s true what they say about Gina:

Fortunately for 150 million Americans, particularly the masculine half of the population, this tantalizing Roman dish of potent anatomical force, already considered Europe’s Queen of Perfect Pulchritude, will be paying our shores a visit around the first of the year. Luscious new star of the Italian cinema, Gina is probably the most perfectly formed creature Europe has ogled since Aphrodite. Her challenge for the title of Number One International Pin-Up Girl is a formidable one. In the six years since this Roman tidbit was chosen Miss Italy, she has become one of Europe’s biggest box-office attractions. …
There is no question that her extraordinary appeal has also had a profound effect on some of filmdom’s outstanding connoisseurs of female attributes. Errol Flynn, who chose Gina as his leading lady in “Crossed Swords,” had this to say: “What a department store this lovely is! She has everything you could want on every floor, and plenty of overstock, too.” Humphrey Bogart, soon to be seen with Gina and Jennifer Jones in John Huston’s “Beat The Devil,” was overheard muttering these lava-soaked words: “This gal is molten ore. What an ingot! She burns me, burns me, burns me. Look at me, I’m a crisp!” And John Huston himself had this point to make: “In any serious discussion of Gina’s talent, you can’t ignore her bosom. That, my friend, is an extraordinary talent to have and to hold. In fact, every time I recall Gina to mind, I must confess that even her elbows seem to be bosoms.”

1. A look back at the life and films of Gina Lollobrigida

A brief biography of Gina Lollobrigida illustrated by stills and video clips assembled by The Guardian.

2. Trapeze (1956)

Extracts from one of the movies that made Gina Lollobrigida a star in the US. The trapeze scenes are enough to make your fingertips tingle. Scroll forward to 9:30 if you want to get straight to the action.

3. Solomon and Sheba (1959)

The original trailer for the biblical blockbuster, promising a vibrant melodrama with plenty of sexual tension and action.

4. Top 10 Gina Lollobrigida Movies of All Time

Introductions to and extracts from ten of Gina Lollobrigida’s films assembled by Stream TV.

The piece goes on to recount how Gina’s male leads reacted to their first encounters with her:

When she first met Bogart and Flynn and John Huston, they did not understand her. They could not see how a woman who, when she was before a camera was a Latin volcano, could, when she was by herself, be so demure. They used to call her Lollofrigida or Lollofrigidaire. But once they found out that she was naturally shy with anyone not her husband, and was not a snob at all, everyone became good friends.

Indeed Humphrey Bogart revises his opinion and memorably observes that “She makes Marilyn Monroe look like Shirley Temple.”

The overt sexism is particularly striking given that the magazine’s readers are predominantly female. Perhaps not surprisingly, the most perceptive analysis of Gina’s appeal to her male fanbase comes from her husband:

She is every man’s ideal come to life. She is the epitome of woman, caught at that moment when her beauty and femininity are at their zenith — rich, full and ripe. Her greatest appeal is with married men. They see in her the wife incarnate, beautiful, ever-appealing, always fertile.

Gina’s second career

With the advent of the 1970s, Gina Lollobrigida’s career as a movie star is petering out and she embarks on a new life. In 1971 she and Milko divorce (they separated in 1966) and she plunges into a second career, reprising the interest in fine arts she gave up to become a star and building on what she learned during her time on sets talking to directors and cinematographers.

Perhaps her most striking achievement is to get an exclusive interview in 1972 with reclusive Cuban revolutionary and prime minister Fidel Castro. She uses this as the basis for Ritratto di Fidel, a short documentary written, directed and produced by herself.

Gina Lollobrigida at The Prado, Madrid

1958. Gina poses in front of three Velasquez portraits of dwarfs: Juan Calabazas, Francisco Lezcano and Diego de Acedo. Photo by Leo Fuchs.

Gina Lollobrigida at The Prado, Madrid

1958. Gina tours one of the galleries at The Prado. But who is her companion? Is he the museum director or one of the curators? Photo by Leo Fuchs.

Gina Lollobrigida at The Prado, Madrid

1958. What would Goya have made of Gina? Here she looks admiringly at a sex symbol of a previous era, the artist's Naked Maja. Photo by Leo Fuchs.

Gina Lollobrigida at The Prado, Madrid

1958. It looks like Gina (or someone else) has been making a copy of Titian's painting of Salome with John the Baptist's head on a plate. Photo by Leo Fuchs.

She also turns her hand to photography and sculpture. Italia Mia, published in 1973 is the first of five books of photos, while in 2003 a collection of 38 of her bronze sculptures is exhibited at a number of venues including the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

She still has time to become a voracious collector of glitzy jewellery – opulent creations of gold and precious stones. In 2013, she auctions 23 of her Bulgari gems, worn at landmark moments during her career, at Sotheby’s in Geneva, using the proceeds to donate £3.2 million to stem cell research.

1958. Gina Lollobrigida poses in front of Hieronymus Bosch’s *The Garden of Earthly Delights* at the Prado. Photo by Leo Fuchs.

And then there’s the gossip and scandal surrounding her liaisons, many with much younger men. Well, we won’t go down that rabbit hole except to note Gina’s disputed marriage to Spanish businessman Javier Rigau y Rafol, 34 years her junior, whom she originally met at a party in Monte Carlo in 1984.

Want to know more about Gina Lollobrigida?

Gina Lollobrigida died on 16 January 2023 and there are plenty of excellent and informative obituaries, notably in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, The Economist and The Scotsman.

For a somewhat drier account replete with sources, look no further than Wikipedia. And for a catalogue of her films, go to IMDb.

Françoise Dorléac – what might have been

Around 1965. Françoise Dorléac in a bodystocking.

Sexy, stylish and sparky, full of joie de vivre, Françoise Dorléac was, in the words of Vogue magazine, a “gamine fatale.” Add to that cocktail her distinctive husky voice and ability to come across totally naturally on screen and it’s no surprise that she didn’t have to wait around for her career as a movie star to achieve lift-off.

During that short career, she made 21 films as well as working as a catwalk model for Dior in her teens:

A photographer asked if I would model for some fashion pictures and I said fine. A producer saw my pictures in the press and hired me for a small role for a film during the school holidays.

Perhaps it was her brush with the fashion world that led her to obsessively cultivate her image, aiming to “keep a certain class, but look erotic”:

I want to dress so that everybody tries to dress like me, and nobody can. I love it when you are completely dressed and you look naked. I wear chain belts to look fragile, like a slave. Every time I go out, even if it’s six o’clock in the morning, when nobody can see, it’s still important.

But she was always going to be an actress. Her parents, Maurice Dorléac and Renée Simonot, were both actors themselves (Renée was born Deneuve but adopted Simonot as her stage name). The latter was one of the first to enter the field of dubbing American films for the French market, becoming the voice of, among others, Olivia de Havilland, Sylvia Sidney, Judy Garland, Donna Reed and Esther Williams.

Françoise first appeared on screen in the movie short Mensonges (1957) but her career proper began in 1960. It took off in 1964 with François Truffaut’s romantic drama La peau douce (The Soft Skin) and Philippe de Broca’s spy spoof That Man from Rio. Those two movies showcase both her range and her potential as an actress and make her premature death all the more poignant.

1966. Françoise Dorléac and Donald Pleasance in Cul-de-sac.

Françoise Dorléac – from dead end to dead

I first came across Françoise Dorléac many years ago starring opposite Donald Pleasance in Roman Polanski’s weird and wonderful black comedy, Cul-de-sac (1966). In case English is not your first language and you’re unfamiliar with the phrase, a cul-de-sac is a no-through road or dead end.

In her third appearance in a non-French film, Françoise is cast as Teresa, a bored and hedonistic wife with little time for or interest in her weak and pathetic husband George, played by Donald Pleasance. As the film opens, a couple of sinister crooks with overtones of Laurel and Hardy arrive on Lindisfarne, the remote island on which George and Teresa have made their home. He is simultaneously indignant and cringing, she is self-obsessed and capricious. The subsequent action plays out through a series of grotesque twists and turns, the product of director Roman Polanski’s fertile and lurid imagination, seemingly inspired in part by the plays of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter.

According to Françoise:

Polanski is completely preoccupied with film; he doesn’t think about the actors as human beings at all. But I do not mind it; he is a brilliant director.

She’s right. It’s quite a movie and deservedly wins the Golden Bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival.

A year later, she jumps into the Renault 10 she’s been renting during her fortnight’s break in Saint-Tropez. She needs to be back in London for the English-dubbed premiere of Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (more on that later). It’s 60 miles to Nice Airport, from which she’ll catch a plane to Paris Orly and then a connecting flight to London. But she’s left it late, she’s in a rush and as she heads for the airport a light drizzle begins to fall.

Less than ten miles to go and after a long dry spell the road surface is slippery. Françoise pulls out to overtake the car in front of her and as she pulls back across the road she loses control of the car, it goes into a spin and crashes into a signpost at the side of the road. By the time the driver of the car she’s overtaken has pulled over to help, it’s too late. The Renault is already on fire and the heat too intense for him to get near. He sees Françoise beating her fists against the driver’s window in a desperate attempt to escape before the car explodes. She was just 25 years old.

When the police arrive, they find among the wreckage the bodies of a young woman and a small dog, and in a charred handbag among the luggage in the boot the burnt remnants of a driver’s license and a chequebook.

1960. Françoise Dorléac (right) with her younger sister Catherine Deneuve.

Françoise Dorléac, Catherine Deneuve and François Truffaut

Arguably the two most important people in Françoise Dorléac’s life are her sister Catherine Deneuve and director François Truffaut.

It is largely thanks to Françoise’s initiative that Catherine becomes an actress. In her second feature film, Les portes claquent (1960) the producers need to find someone to play Françoise’s character’s younger sister. Who could be better than her younger sister in real life, she suggests. So Catherine makes her screen debut. But why does she have a different surname?

It was impossible for me to have the same name as my sister Françoise. Or at least, that’s what my family said at the time… If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t make that decision! I love my mother dearly but I don’t like her maiden name. It’s hard to pronounce. I prefer my real name.

Françoise and Catherine make an intriguing pair and you can judge for yourself by watching Jacques Demy’s 1967 tribute to the Hollywood musical, Les demoiselles de Rochefort (The Young Girls of Rochefort) in which they co-star as twin sisters.

For all their similarities, according to Catherine, “[Françoise] used to say that the two of us together would make one complete woman because we were so different.” To put it another way, they’re like two sides of the same coin.

Françoise is effervescent, spirited and adventurous, while Catherine is cool, reserved and cautious. Their mother remembers Françoise throwing herself at everything “with passion” while describing Catherine as a “tender, fragile little girl who loved candy.” Their clothes reflect their personalities. Françoise is into the metallics and prints so fashionable around the mid-1960s, Catherine goes for a more sophisticated, classic look. In a 1966 interview Catherine declares:

1969. François Truffaut goes out with Catherine Deneuve. Read more.

She claims she always looks like she has nothing in the closet and I look like I have six closets. She wears casual things but she has 100 casual things and I have three subtle things.”

But appearances can be deceptive. Underneath her extrovert character, Françoise has her insecurities: “I find that with each picture, I become less confident about my ability to do good work.” It’s only at the insistence of her mother that in 1965 she finally moves out of the family home. Even then, it’s only to an apartment across the street, which her mother finds for her.

François Truffaut collaborates with Françoise on just one film, La peau douce, but that belies his significance to her. Initially, things look far from promising:

I met Truffaut and realised how good it would be to make a film with him. The trouble was I disliked him on sight and it wasn’t long before he told me the same. In fact, he found me unbearable. We had a few tense months together before we realised our first impressions were wrong and found the beginnings of mutual discovery.

In fact they become lovers for a while and subsequently remain close friends.

Truffaut draws from Françoise a truly wonderful performance as Nicole, an air hostess who has an affair with Pierre (Jean Desailly), a publisher and literary celebrity. To achieve that, he encourages her to relax (he reckons her movements are too jerky) and slow down, not least in terms of the way she talks. The film is a perceptive and tender depiction of its characters’ dreams, insecurities and vulnerabilities. The story is of deep personal significance to Truffaut, whose marriage is breaking up and who has himself embarked on an affair with Françoise. Afterwards, the pair remain close friends. On its release, La peau douce appeals more to critics than to audiences but its reputation has grown over time and it is definitely worth looking out.

1. La peau douce (1964)

Pierre (Jean Desailly) is mesmerised by Nicole as she takes to the dance floor.

francoise dorleac donald pleasance cul-de-sac

2. Cul-de-sac (1966)

The entire film – from Criterion, no less. Don’t miss this one!

francoise dorleac catherine deneuve documentary

3. Les demoiselles de Rochefort (1967)

A behind-the-scenes documentary. Although it’s mostly in French, you can view English subtitles by clicking on the CC button at the bottom of the image.

francoise dorleac catherine deneuve demoiselles

4. Les demoiselles de Rochefort (1967)

A trailer for the movie.

Françoise Dorléac – a tribute

It is Truffaut who should have the last word about Françoise Dorléac. She clearly made a huge impression on him and, following her death, he wrote movingly of her in Cahiers de Cinéma. I’ve done my best to translate his words into English, but there are subtleties, plays on words here that pretty much defy translation. So in one particular case, I’ve added the original French should you wish to see it.

1960. Françoise Dorléac, 17, in her dressing room at the Théâtre Antoine. She’s been cast as Gigi in the eponymous play by Colette. Photo by François Gragnon.

Her name was Françoise
I ask for permission to post one or two photos of Françoise Dorléac who died on 26 June last year in a car accident en route to Nice Airport. For the public, it was just a news item, all the more cruel because it involved a very beautiful 25-year-old girl, an actress who had not yet had time to become a star. For everyone who knew her, Françoise Dorléac represented more, the kind of person one meets only rarely in one’s life, an exceptional young woman whose charm, femininity, intelligence, grace and incredible moral force made her unforgettable to anyone who spoke for an hour with her.
Her strong, even bossy, personality, was in contrast to her fragile and lithe physique, which had the quality of seaweed or a greyhound. Françoise Dorléac was, in my opinion, an actress insufficiently appreciated. In her thirties she would have won the hearts of the general public – they would then have adored her in the same way as did all those who had the chance to work with her.
The challenge for a young actress is to transition smoothly from girl to woman, from juvenile to adult roles; I believe that Françoise Dorléac, a precocious woman, mature beyond her years, her face and figure already blossoming and her looks, as we say in the trade, made to last [son visage et son corps déjà construits et, comme on dit dans les studios, construits en dur et pour durer], was the only young actress one might have expected to get better and better.
Ever since she was a teenager, she took two cold showers a day, asserting that “You prepare for your forties in your twenties.” When she was impatient to find roles and make films, I tried to convince her that she had nothing to fear from the passage of the years and that time was on her side. I told her that we would make a film every six years and I booked her appointments for 1970, 1976, 1982.

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Françoise Dorléac with Jean-Pierre Cassel
1961. Françoise Dorléac and Jean-Pierre Cassel co-star in La gamberge (from which this is likely a scene) and Arsène Lupin contre Arsène Lupin. Cassel falls in love Françoise and remembers the affair as “a terrible, destructive passion.” There is an International Magazine Service copyright stamp on the back of the photo.
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Françoise Dorléac in That Man from Rio
1964. In Philippe de Broca’s L’Homme de Rio (That Man from Rio, 1964), Françoise Dorléac stars opposite Jean-Paul Belmondo. It’s a spoof spy movie apparently inspired by the Tintin comics and proves to be a big box-office success.
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Françoise Dorléac at the Cannes Film Festival
May 1964. Françoise Dorléac at the Cannes Film Festival. There are Reporters Associés and International Magazine Service copyright stamps on the back of the photo. There is a copy of this photo at Getty Images.
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Françoise Dorléac in a floral dress
1964. There is an International Magazine Service copyright stamp on the back of the photo. Photo by Chris Kindahl/Dalmas.
Every time I wrote to her, I put on the envelope “Mademoiselle Framboise* (Raspberry) Dorléac”* to make sure she would read my letter with a smile. Françoise Dorléac was resolute, bordering on obstinate, she was principled, her interviews were rich in aphorisms, and she was demanding in matters of life and love. She could suddenly cast a very severe look in the direction of someone who raised her suspicions.
Until then, only smiles, laughs and giggles and that’s what makes June 26 last year unacceptable, those great cascades of laughter cut short.

* Probably inspired by Bob Lapointe’s 1960 song Avanie et framboise, whose opening lines are:

Elle s’appelait Françoise
Mais on l’appelait Framboise

Françoise Dorléac does a tree-top fashion shoot

13 April 1966. Two assistants help Françoise Dorléac to climb a tree in which she is going to pose for a fashion shoot.

Françoise Dorléac does a tree-top fashion shoot

13 April 1966. The theme of the shoot seems to be jumpsuits. It is for Dim Dam Dom, a French TV show that focuses on the latest fashion and music trends.

Françoise Dorléac does a tree-top fashion shoot

13 April 1966. The jumpsuit she’s wearing here is a rather wonderful print redolent of the period.

Françoise Dorléac does a tree-top fashion shoot

13 April 1966. The photos are by Philippe Le Tellier. There are other photos from this shoot at Getty Images.

Want to know more about Françoise Dorléac?

The most compelling account of Françoise Dorléac’s life and death is in The New European. For online facts and figures head over to Wikipedia. Other sources include IMDb, Cinema Scholars, Vogue, Pure France and The Famous People.

If you can understand French, you could take a look at a 50-minute documentary about Françoise Dorléac and listen to François Truffaut talking about her.

In print there are:

Elle S’Appelait Françoise by Catherine Deneuve and Patrick Modiano
a chapter on Françoise in The Continental Actress
an article, Françoise Dorléac A shooting star of Sixties French cinema, by M Anderson in Film comment, Volume 41 number 4 (2005).

Corinne Calvet – men behaving badly

Around 1946. Corinne Calvet by Sam Lévin. Read more.

Corinne Calvet was a smart and ambitious actress, whose talents were squandered by a Hollywood system that failed to see beyond her obvious sexual allure.

Corinne was no dumb blonde. She hung out in Paris after World War II with Jean Cocteau, Jean Anouilh, Jean-Paul Sartre and the existentialist set. She also had the intellect and eloquence to win a place at the Sorbonne to study criminal law before deciding to become an actress. As she herself pointed out:

A lawyer needs exactly what an actor needs: strong personality, persuasive powers and a good voice.

Now, it has to be said that Corinne was no saint. She was well aware of her very considerable charms and not averse to deploying them when it suited her. If a décolleté dress would increase her chances of gaining the attention of a director or producer who could help her further her career, then so far as she was concerned that was all in a day’s work.

She bares all in Has Corinne Been A Good Girl?, the autobiography she published in 1983. Among other things, it’s a strikingly candid exposé of the predatory behaviour of the moguls, directors and producers who had it in their power to make or break her career. They come across as a group with a sense of entitlement and no moral compass.

Corinne Dibot becomes Corinne Calvet

Corinne Dibot is born in 1925, the youngest of four children. Her father is an impoverished count, her mother, Juliette, an heiress as well as being one of the scientists who contributed to the invention of Pyrex glassware, seemingly at the expense of spending time with her children. Corinne is devastated when Juliette suddenly and unexpectedly dies in 1935.

She becomes something of a wild child, hanging out with the local boys. Age 15, she’s expelled from the convent school she’s been attending after she’s found with an erotic book from her father’s office. Her sexual adventures result in two very unpleasant backstreet abortions.

1954. Corinne’s friend Martine Carol as Annamaria in La Spiaggia. Photo by G B Poletto. Read more.

By the time she sets out around 1947 to find fame and fortune in Hollywood, she’s had stints at art school, law school, theatrical school and the École du Cinéma; she’s made her stage debut, worked as a radio hostess and had a few small film roles. And she’s adopted the surname Calvet because her father doesn’t want their aristocratic family name associated with acting.

Corinne goes to Hollywood

One day a friend from her student days, Martine Carol, asks Corinne to go with her to a party hosted by Paramount. Apparently they’re looking for a leading lady to play opposite Ray Milland. She’s introduced to him and when she comes to leave, she’s informed that Paramount want her to come to their office the next day. She’s presented with a form:

1949. Corinne Calvet kicks off her career. Read more.

I started filling in the answers, but soon the questions began to probe into my private life, asking for details in personal taste, my thoughts on marriage and children, my sleeping habits. Did I wear pyjamas or a nightgown? What was my preference in men, short, tall, fat, skinny, hairy or bald? … It seemed more like the kind of questionnaire a madam might use in selecting girls to work in a brothel.

She tears up the form and flounces out. In spite of (or perhaps because of) which, Paramount decide to offer Corinne a seven-year contract. Jean-Pierre urges her to accept and put her career first.

On arrival in the New York in 1947, she’s surprised and not entirely delighted that the American press and studios seem to be interested in her almost entirely as a sex symbol.

I was already encountering the stereotyped notions American men had about French women. Their eyebrows would go up and they would leer sideways as they greeted me. American GIs, soldiers whose experience with French women was usually limited to girls of questionable repute, had been partly responsible for this reaction. But such impressions were entirely false. Most French women were raised with an emphasis on being good wives and mothers, and it was absurd to conclude that they were in any way promiscuous. Immediately I realised that in the minds of many American men, however, French women were decidedly over-sexed, and that I was a prime example of French womanhood.

As she departs on the train for Hollywood she’s warned warned to be on her guard against the wolves she will encounter.

1949. Corinne Calvet in Rope of Sand. Read more.

Corinne Calvet and William Meiklejohn

One night soon after she’s arrived in Hollywood, after dinner at Romanoff’s, William Meiklejohn, Paramount’s head of talent and casting, suggests the party adjourns to the Mocambo. He ushers Corinne into the larger of the two waiting cars and lets the other five studio executives take the other.

15 minutes later, she realises the car is heading neither for Mocambo nor for the house she’s staying at. Meiklejohn tells her he thought they’d go and have a tête-à-tête on the beach. She asks him to have the car turn round and take her home. Instead, he puts his hand between her legs, forcing them apart. She grabs one of his fingers and twists it hard until he tells the driver to make for Mocambo.

Now she’s out of favour at Paramount and her career is on hold.

Corinne Calvet, Rory Calhoun and Harry Cohn

It’s around this time that she falls in love with actor Rory Calhoun and embarks on an affair with him. Then she gets a summons from Harry Cohn, boss at Columbia via his sidekick, Walter Kane. Cohn has plans for four movies in which Rita Hayworth was going to star. But now that she’s left the studio, he’s looking for a replacement. Join him this afternoon on his yacht for a trip to Catalina Island.

When she boards the boat, “Cohn’s snakelike eyes were piercing my clothes, examining each part of my body.” It turns out that Mrs Cohn will not be joining the jaunt. They reach Catalina Island, have dinner and then Kane goes ashore – he says he can’t get to sleep on a rocking boat. With Kane out of the way, Cohn makes to kiss Corinne and she flees to her cabin, only to discover there is no lock on the door. In due course, Cohn turns up in his pyjama bottoms, “his eyes narrowed with lust.” As he approaches her, she knees him in the groin, yells for help and the deckhands arrive.

1950. Corinne Calvet beside her bust. Read more.

“Call the shore boat and get this French bitch off my yacht,” Cohn said with vicious finality.

Our heroine takes the first flight home only to find Rory in the middle of trashing the place, having assumed she’s capitulated to Cohn’s advances. When she tells him what happened, he drives her straight out to the harbour, rents a boat and sails it to Catalina Island (though Corinne has to take the wheel when the conditions deteriorate and Rory gets seasick).

On arrival, Rory moors the boat next to Cohn’s, takes Corinne down to the cabin and undresses her, then takes her back on deck to make noisy love to her. At which point, the lights go on in Cohn’s yacht, the crew emerge and lean over the railing to see what’s going on. When Cohn himself appears, Rory shouts, “Take a good look, Mr Cohn. This is the closest you’ll ever get.”

A few days later, Rory instructs Corinne to buy a new dress and have her hair done. He’ll pick her up at 18:00, take her out for dinner and announce their engagement to the press. But he doesn’t turn up. She waits and she waits. And then she goes in search of him, finally tracking him down at Ciro’s, where he’s at a table with his agent, Henry Willson.

She persuades him to dance with her and asks him why he’s stood her up. Henry has told him that marrying Corinne would be bad for his career. Rory refuses to kiss her and, as the saying goes, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. When the couple return to the table, she pours the open bottle of champagne over Rory’s head and flounces out to her car.

Up the road, she lays in wait for him to leave and then follows him back to Henry’s house. She rings the bell and demands a kiss. She’s parked her car across the drive and won’t move it until she gets satisfaction. Rory goes inside and comes back with a pistol. He fires a warning shot over the bonnet of Corinne’s car, then holds the gun to her head. Henry, meanwhile, is on his knees, holding onto Rory’s leg and pleading with him. Police sirens wail in the distance – the neighbours have heard the shot and called them. Corinne flees to her apartment.

1949. Corinne Calvet as Suzanne Renaud in Rope of Sand. Read more.

Corinne Calvet and Hal Wallis

It’s 1948. When someone reports Corinne to the House Un-American Activities Committee for her association with the existentialist movement in France, the only way she can stick around is to get a US husband. In the teeth of his mother’s opposition, actor John Bromfield comes up trumps. The pair are married in Boulder City and spend their honeymoon night at Las Vegas’ Flamingo Hotel – a venue you’ll be familiar with if you read about Virginia Hill, a seriously bad good-time girl.

On their return from honeymoon to Los Angeles, John is sent off to do location shooting in Arizona. They both have contracts with Hal Wallis Productions and one evening while her husband’s away, Hal Wallis, best known now as the producer of Casablanca, drops by their apartment. After a bit of banter he makes a lunge for Corinne. When she locks herself in the bathroom and points out she’s a married woman, he tells her he told John to propose to her – it was a marriage of convenience to suit the studio. She’s devastated.

Wallis goes on to punish Corinne by cancelling John’s contract and putting her in My Friend Irma Goes West (1950), a comedy starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

Rope of Sand [her previous film] had made me a valuable property. Doing this film would ruin my chances of rising higher as a dramatic star.

For his birthday, Corinne gives Wallis a picture she’s painted of him as a clown. In her memoir, she protests that it’s an innocent, well intentioned gift and she’s astonished to hear that he’s furious. Really???

So Wallis puts her into another Martin and Lewis comedy, Sailor Beware (1952). With John out of work, once again she can’t afford to say no to it.

On the set one morning as Dean and I were rehearsing our duet, Wallis stopped the routine. The playback had stopped. The set was silent.
“Corinne,” Wallis’ voice boomed. “I’ve told you, I don’t want my actresses to wear falsies.”
“I’m not wearing any.”
“Go and take them out,” he ordered.
“Mr. Wallis, are you calling me a liar?”
I spoke in a menacing tone as I approached him. I grabbed his hand, and in front of everyone, put it inside my dress and made sure he felt that I had nothing there but my own breasts.
“Are you finding anything there but my flesh? No? Then thank you.”
Dropping his hand, I returned to stand next to Dean Martin, who looked extremely amused.

After she completes Flight for Tangier (1953), Wallis reveals that Corinne is one of a number of stars whose contract he will not be renewing.

Two or three years later, she finds herself in a New York club having dinner at the same table as Wallis. When he starts to grope her under the table, she goes off to “powder her nose.” It’s at this point that she realises that she’s running a very high fever and decides it’s payback time. When she returns to the table, she leads Wallis to believe he has a chance with her. She gets him to take her for a romantic ride in a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park, during which she does what it takes to pass her infection on to him. Three days later, she sends him four dozen red roses with an accompanying note: “Next time I’ll give you something worse. Best wishes for your recovery.”

1960. Darry Zanuck (background) shares a table with Juliette Greco and Orson Welles. Read more.

Corinne Calvet and Darryl Zanuck

Back in 1950, Corinne’s agent manages to get her a contract shared between Hal Wallis and Darryl Zanuck, head honcho at 20th Century-Fox. The first movie in which they cast her is When Willie Comes Marching Home. Director John Ford was hoping to get Maureen O’Hara for Corinne’s part, so he’s a bit disappointed and hostile. To make matters worse, Corinne’s interpretation of her role is different from his. It turns out that Zanuck likes her take and tells her to persist with it, so she’s caught in the crossfire between two big egos.

One day, Zanuck summons her to his office.

Zanuck got up from behind his desk. I sat down, and he started to pace up and down in front of me, making small talk.
“Wasn’t the weather cold this week in Los Angeles,” he said, looking out the window. “The Palm Springs sun should be very pleasant.” Dramatically, he turned on his heels and stood a few feet away from me with his erect penis standing proudly out of his unzipped pants.
“How do you like that?” He was smiling proudly.

When Corinne fails to respond as expected, Zanuck implies that if she agrees to have sex with him, he will offer John a contract at 20th Century-Fox. She tells John about the meeting.

And when I finished saying that I was willing to do it with his consent he looked at me in total disgust.
“You bitch. You could have done it without telling me.”

Really, what’s a girl to do?

1950. My Friend Irma Goes West

This is the movie to which Hal Wallis relegated Corinne as a reprisal for rejecting his advances. It dashed her hopes of becoming a dramatic actress following her success in Rope of Sand.

Her co-stars here are Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, who performed in nightclubs and on radio before branching out into TV and films. Popular with US audiences at the time, it feels pretty cringeworthy now.

1952. The Name’s the Same

Corinne Calvet tries to stump the panel in this extract from The Name’s the Same.

The host is Robert Q Lewis, the panelists writer Abe Burrows, actress Joan Alexander and composer Meredith Willson.

Here again, there’s lots of embarrassing flirting and suggestiveness. How times have changed!

1989. Corinne Calvet vs Cesar Romero

Talkshow host Joe Franklin sits down with five Hollywood veterans.

The discussion gets cantankerous around 1:15 when Corinne claims that her career suffered after she fended off the advances of mogul Harry Cohn and producer Hal Wallis. Cesar Romero responds by suggesting that she shouldn’t be making such a fuss about it – that she not they was the problem.

1992. Corinne Calvet TV interview

The unctuous interviewer is actor and talk-show host, Skip Lowe.

Feel free to skip (pun intended) the unbelievably cheesy introduction and bear in mind that this appears to be an unedited recording, complete with blank screens and off-screen discussion.

What to make of Corinne Calvet?

1952. Corinne Calvet goes to war with Zsa Zsa Gabor. Read more.

Of course, Corinne Calvet gives us only her side of the story. And reading between the lines and taking account of various contemporary articles and reports, she comes across as a pretty feisty and litigious individual, often well able and willing to give as good as she gets. Good for her!

Her writing style can be an obstacle to taking her seriously:

I looked up at Rory Calhoun as he introduced himself. I tumbled into the dazzling whirlpool of his eyes. It was as refreshing as the light green spring meadows when the leaves are still new. There was a fire in the depth of his glance that consumed my resistance. It was too strong, too intoxicating.

Nevertheless… Corinne Calvet’s story is one woman’s case study of the starlet’s dilemma and a reminder of just how exploitative the movie industry was back in the day (which is not to say that it’s exactly spotless today, witness the #MeToo movement). She suffered the same fate as many beautiful women prepared to exploit their physical attributes as part of their acting repertoire, eliciting from critics a kind of lecherous glee on the one hand and sneers of contempt on the other.

On IMDb she has 49 credits as an actress, including appearances in TV series as well as roles in feature films. But sadly, her dreams of a career as a serious dramatic actress went up in a puff of ooh la la, double entendre and mediocre movies. Ultimately, she became known to the public primarily for her combustible private life and a number of headline-grabbing legal battles.

1961. Corinne Calvet at a Beverly Hills party with Don Scott. Read more.

As well as having various love affairs, she had three failed marriages and a son by her second husband. In an interview quoted in the 21 April 1960 edition of the Los Angeles Times, Corinne Calvet wryly observed:

American men make wonderful husbands if you don’t love them. But if you love them, don’t marry them. I don’t mean they are lousy lovers. I just think they are little boys who don’t know what they want. In America, you don’t have romances, you have affairs. And these affairs really lack class.

Want to know more about Corinne Calvet?

The main source of information about Corinne Calvet is her autobiography, Has Corinne Been a Good Girl? I made quite extensive notes as I read it. If you’d like a copy of them, please contact me.

The best factual overviews are at Wikipedia and Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen. You can find obituaries is, among others, The Guardian, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Variety.

Claudia Cardinale – up for a challenge

1966. Claudia Cardinale, radiant, at an event. Read more.

During the early 1960s, the Italian actresses whose names were on audiences’ lips outside Italy were Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren. They’d broken into Hollywood and in doing so left a gap back home. Into that gap stepped Claudia Cardinale with glorious aplomb.

In 1963, her breakthrough year, she starred in two of the iconic films of the era: Federico Fellini’s 8½ and Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard. It wasn’t long before Hollywood beckoned. After all, Claudia had all the necessary qualifications. As The Guardian observed in its 11 September 2011 edition:

A generation of postwar cinephiles rhapsodised over her earthy voluptuousness, her hourglass figure, her “bedroom eyes”, her cascading brunette tresses. She was the embodiment of postwar European glamour and was packaged as such, on screen and off. It’s almost like she had sexiness thrust upon her.

But there’s more to Claudia Cardinale than meets the eye…

Claudia Cardinale poses for a portrait

1959. Claudia Cardinale, at the outset of her career, poses for a portrait shot. She's up against a wall here – literally rather than metaphorically. There's a Cameraphoto agency stamp on the back of the print as well as a date (21 July 1959).

Claudia Cardinale, promotional shot for La viaccia

1961. Claudia Cardinale as Bianca, a prostitute, in Mauro Bolognini's film La viaccia (The Lovemakers). The descriptive label on the back of the photo partially obscures a Pierluigi copyright notice. There's also a Cinémonde Archives stamp.

Claudia Cardinale at a premiere

1966. The premiere is likely of The Professionals in Monte Carlo on 28 November 1966. The print is stamped on the back by Reporters Associés (Paris) and International Magazine Service (Sweden).

Claudia Cardinale

Mid-1960s. It looks like Claudia Cardinale has just got out of a swimming pool. There's nothing on the back of the print to indicate when or where this photo was taken. It has also proved impossible to track down online, hence the vague date.

Claudia Cardinale’s teenage turbulence

Her father, a railway worker, is a Sicilian emigrant to Tunisia. Her mother is French (or, according to some accounts, born in Tunisia to Sicilian emigrants). They make their home in Tunis and that’s where Claudia is born in 1938. She grows up with her three siblings, with French her first language (Tunisia is a French protectorate) but also a smattering of Tunisian Arabic and Sicilian (a different and distinct language from Italian).

Claudia Cardinale publicity shot for Il bell'Antonio — 1959. Claudia Cardinale publicity shot by Elda Luxardo & Francesco Alessi for Il bell’Antonio. Read more.

Her first appearance on film is in the 1956 movie Anneaux d’or. Alongside her classmates all dressed in white, she stands on the shore watching a group of young men on a boat waving enthusiastically at them. She follows this up in 1957 with a minor role opposite Omar Sharif in Goha, a French-Tunisian movie nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival. She also starts at university with a view to becoming a primary school teacher but fate intervenes. She remembers:

I was in the crowd at the Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia contest, watching all the girls onstage. Suddenly a man took me up there and put the ribbon on me! The prize was a trip to the Venice Film Festival. At the time the bikini was not common in Italy, and I arrived in a bikini with a djellaba robe on top. All the paparazzi were photographing me. I was with my mother, very young – we couldn’t understand what was happening! It was all because I had a bikini on. Then they asked me to do cinema and I said no. When I got on the plane home, there was a picture of me in the newspaper, and the headline was ‘The Girl Who Refuses Cinema’.

She does, however, accept a place at the Centro Sperimentale Cinematografico, Italy’s national film school in Rome. But it doesn’t work out. She’s there for little more than a month before, feeling homesick, struggling with the language and disenchanted with the Method approach to acting, she calls it a day. She makes her way back to Tunis, where something truly shocking happens:

One day as I was walking home from school in Tunis a man in a car grabbed me and raped me and I became pregnant. After that my mother and my sister stayed close to me. I gave birth in London, because in those days it would have been a scandal. We pretended that my son was my little brother. I didn’t want to become an actress; I did it so I could be independent.

1961. Claudia Cardinale. Photo by Angelo Frontoni.

Meanwhile, for the Italian cinema world, out of sight has not meant out of mind. Stories continue to appear in magazines about the girl who rejected stardom to be with her family. Offers continue to roll in. Finally, depressed and at her wits’ end, she signs a long-term contract with Vides Films, a production company set up by Franco Cristaldi. It is he who sends her to London to keep her pregnancy away from the prying eyes of the Italian press. Her son Patrick is then placed in the care of nuns in Italy. When he gets to four and a half, he’s transferred to Tunis to be looked after by Claudia’s parents. The story is that he’s Claudia’s little brother.

The Vides contract turns out to be a double-edged sword. It gets Claudia out of her predicament and will be the making of her professionally, but financially it will prove to be a disaster, she later tells Variety.

Well, Cristaldi was the best producer in Europe and thanks to him I made lots of great movies. But the problem was that I was paid a monthly salary; I wasn’t paid per movie. I was just an employee, like an office worker. So when that contract ended I didn’t have a dime in the bank.

Cristaldi’s interest in Claudia turns out to be not just professional. He also becomes romantically involved, just as Carlo Ponti did with Sophia Loren. The couple get married in Las Vegas in 1966, but that’s in the future.

1. I soliti ignoti

1958. A scene featuring Claudia Cardinale in one of her earliest roles (Italian, no subtitles but you'll have no problem getting the gist of what's going on).

2. Il bell’Antonio

1960. The original Italian trailer without subtitles. But you don't need to understand the words to grasp the emoting that's much in evidence.

3. Rocco e i suoi fratelli

1960. The official trailer for the newly restored version. Claudia hardly gets a look-in but you'll catch a glimpse of a masterpiece.

4. La ragazza con la valigia

1961. A charming collage of clips from the movie with a superimposed soundtrack.

Claudia’s early films

With her son taken care of, Claudia returns to Italy so that Cristaldi can get her career up and running. She faces an immediate challenge: her Italian is little more than rudimentary and she speaks it with a French accent. What’s more, her slightly husky voice is regarded as not ideal by directors. So in most of her early films, Claudia’s voice is dubbed.

I didn’t speak a word of Italian. In my first movies everyone was shouting and I couldn’t understand anything. Then I had a small part in a Visconti film [Rocco e i suoi fratelli, 1960], in a very violent fight scene. Visconti took a megaphone and said, ‘Don’t kill my la Cardinale!’ I realised, my God, he’s noticed me!

Still, that’s a side issue for Cristaldi; he has big plans for her. Europe’s leading sex symbol of the moment is Brigitte Bardot – BB as she’s known to her fans. Claudia is to be Italy’s riposte. In a memorable one-liner, Bardot observes: “After ‘BB’ comes ‘CC’, no?” It could have turned into a fierce rivalry, but Claudia’s not in the mood to be competitive:

I was a fan of Brigitte Bardot. Who could not be? When I was young she was my idol. I loved her elegance and her natural power. She was unique.

Claudia Cardinale looks at herself in the mirror

1961. Claudia perfects her look prior to strutting her stuff, and the set-up gives her just about every angle. That's all I know about this shot other than that there is an International Magazine Service copyright notice dated 18 December 1961 on the back of the print.

Claudia Cardinale at the premiere of Les Lions Sont Lachés

1961. The cinema marquee in the background suggests that the occasion is the premiere of Les Lions Sont Lachés, a film in which Claudia Cardinale stars opposite Henri Verneuil. You can find out more about the paparazzi here. The back of the print is stamped by Europress and Publi-Press. The latter includes the name "H. Havrenne", who presumably is the photographer.

Claudia Cardinale and Brigitte Bardot at an awards ceremony

1961. On the back of the print are Agence Dalmas and International Magazine Service copyright notices, the latter dated 21 December 1961. The photo was likely taken at the David di Donatello Awards held on 30 July that year by the Accademia del Cinema Italiano. Brigitte Bardot was Best Foreign Actress and Claudia Cardinale received a Special David for her performance in La ragazza con la valigia.

Claudia Cardinale and Brigitte Bardot go for each other

1971. Claudia Cardinale and Brigitte Bardot slug it out in a scene from Les Pétroleuses (The Legend of Frenchie King). As well as an International Magazine Service copyright notice, there's a photographer's stamp on the back of the photo. Photo by Terry O'Neill.

The two sex symbols eventually slug it out in a hammy cat fight in a scene in Les Pétroleuses (The Legend of Frenchie King, 1971), a French spoof Western.

Back in 1958, Claudia’s first movie turns out to be something of an international hit – I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street), a black comedy about an inept gang of thieves. She plays Carmelina, the young sister of one of the gang members, kept under lock and key lest she lose her virginity before she gets married. This is one of the films in which Claudia’s voice is dubbed, a topic on which director Mario Monicelli’s comments are revealing:

First of all because in Italy we often shoot with actors who are not professional. For example the guy who plays the Sicilian, the jealous brother Ferribotte, was not an actor. He was a dishwasher in a restaurant I would frequent. The guy who plays Capannelle, the sporty guy, wasn’t an actor either. I think he was a bricklayer. Of course Cardinale wasn’t an actress then either. But this way of shooting films was quite common in Italy, to use actors taken from the street.

Cristaldi proves to be an astute manager and lands his protégé roles in a series of well regarded movies including Un maledetto imbroglio (The Facts of a Murder, 1958), Il bell’Antonio (Handsome Antonio, 1960) and La ragazza con la valigia (Girl with a Suitcase, 1961). LIFE magazine (29 September 1961 issue) reports that La ragazza “provides the first starring role for Claudia Cardinale, who at 22 is not yet much of an actress – but much of a delicious dish.” It fails to notice that Claudia takes acting seriously and though marketed as a sex symbol, doesn’t drink or smoke or have romances with her leading men: “I never made sexy things in my films. It is so stupid all this sex talk.” Well, yes and no…

A seamstress makes a final adjustment to the bow on the gown Claudia Cardinale is about to model

Claudia Cardinale at Nina Ricci, Paris

1962. On the back of the photo, which is printed on Paris Match Marie Claire paper, is an International Magazine Service copyright notice dated 28 February 1962. On 10 February that year Claudia Cardinale worked as a model at Nina Ricci’s fashion house in Paris according to Getty Images. Here, a seamstress makes a final adjustment to the bow.

Claudia Cardinale admires herself in the mirror while a seamstress adjusts her gown

Claudia Cardinale at Nina Ricci, Paris

1962. On the back of the photo are copyright notices for Agence Dalmas and International Magazine Service, the latter dated 1 March 1962. On 10 February that year Claudia Cardinale worked as a model at Nina Ricci’s fashion house in Paris. Here a seamstress is hard at work while Claudia admires herself in the mirror.

Claudia Cardinale surrounded by Nina Ricci staff preparing her for a fashion show

Claudia Cardinale at Nina Ricci, Paris

1962. On the back of the photo are copyright notices for Agence Dalmas and International Magazine Service, the latter dated 1 March 1962. On 10 February that year Claudia Cardinale worked as a model at Nina Ricci’s fashion house in Paris. Here she is surrounded by staff preparing her for the show.

Claudia Cardinale models a gown and matching shawl by Nina Ricci

Claudia Cardinale at Nina Ricci, Paris

1962. On the back of the photo are copyright notices for Agence Dalmas and International Magazine Service, the latter dated 28 February 1962. On 10 February that year Claudia Cardinale worked as a model at Nina Ricci’s fashion house in Paris. Here she's made it out of the dressing room and smiles at the photographer as the invited audience look on.

A year of contrasts and achievement

1963 is the year that Claudia Cardinale stakes her claim for a place in the movie pantheon. That year she works simultaneously with Luchino Visconti and Federico Fellini, and what a contrast they prove to be:

Visconti, precise, meticulous as if we were in the theatre, spoke to me in French and wanted me brunette with long hair. Fellini, messy and without a script, spoke to me in Italian and wanted me blonde.

Mid-1960s. Claudia Cardinale poses opposite a wind machine.

Luchino Visconti’s fabulous historical epic, Il gattopardo (The Leopard) tells the story of a fading aristocratic way of life. It is set at the beginning of the 1860s when Garibaldi’s landing in Sicily portends the unification and modernisation of Italy. Claudia, at her most radiant, stars alongside Burt Lancaster (cast against type and dubbed into Italian and absolutely magnificent) and Alain Delon. She says:

I was lucky to have spent so much time with Visconti. We were always together, I was always at his house, we went away together, we watched the San Remo festival together. … Before filming started we did all the rehearsals, with all the cast, around a table. It all had to be perfect. … But that dress, my God! Everything was antique. When I finished the movie, I had blood all round my waist. Visconti said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

The film combines superb acting with sumptuous period sets and stunning photography and concludes with a wonderful 45-minute ball scene that apparently takes two weeks to put together. It goes on to win the 1963 Palme d’Or at Cannes as well as achieving commercial success in Europe. Unfortunately the version released in the US is horribly hacked about, poorly dubbed and transferred to an inferior print that dulls its colours. No wonder it sinks without trace. So, if you’re going to watch The Leopard, and you should, make sure you have the restored uncut version.

Il gattopardo (The Leopard)

The US trailer, dubbed of course, marketing the movie as a latter-day Gone with Wind, introduced by Burt Lancaster.

Il gattopardo (The Leopard)

Part of the final act of the film, Don Fabrizio’s (Burt Lancaster) unbearably poignant dance with Angelica (Claudia Cardinale).

Otto e mezzo (8½)

A UK trailer released by the British Film Institute for a new restored version of the film.

Otto e mezzo (8½)

A collage of clips, all featuring Claudia Cardinale – ravishing but no dialogue.

The intellectual rigour of Il gattopardo is in stark contrast to Otto e mezzo’s (8½) visually expressed emotions.

In Otto e mezzo, Marcello Mastroianni is Guido Anselmi, a fêted film director, all set to make another box-office hit except for one thing – he doesn’t have a plot. Guido is, to all intents and purposes, Fellini himself and the film, morphing between reality and fantasy, is told from the director’s perspective. Claudia Cardinale plays herself, who also happens to be Guido’s ideal woman – in his imagination, that is. Real life’s another matter. Ms Cardinale has fond memories of Fellini:

Mid-1960s. Claudia Cardinale inspects her makeup.

He was a very funny man. He would pick me up in the car to take me to the set. … He would go down on his knees for me, he adored me, he got angry if he didn’t think I was eating enough. He used to say to me: “You belong to Africa, to the Earth. That’s why you’re my muse.”
He made me feel the centre of the Earth, the most beautiful, the most important. I truly miss him, his sweetness, tenderness, his thin voice even. Acting for him was like an event, there was no script, the set was noisy, it was chaotic, anarchy reigned, yet he was able to isolate himself and get on with the job. You thought you were doing everything spontaneously, any which way you pleased, but at the end of the day you’d done exactly what he had in mind. … With Federico, it was all improvisation.

Otto e mezzo goes on to win an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and is now considered to be one of the greatest and most influential films of all time. As for Claudia, in 1963, she appears on the covers of over 250 European magazines and fan letters pour through her (agent’s) letterbox at the rate of over a thousand a month, including hundreds of marriage proposals. In spite of which, she remains modest about her talent and aware that the careers of movie stars are inherently precarious.

Once upon a time in Hollywood

It would be surprising had the Hollywood studios not wanted to get in on the action. This puts Claudia (or more likely Cristaldi) in the driving seat when it comes to negotiating contracts:

My main advantage was that I didn’t ask to go to Hollywood, they called me. In those days whenever a new star caught their attention, the Hollywood studios had to have him or her, they tried to monopolise all the stars. They tied you down with a contract and in a way destroyed your career. I tried to defend myself. For instance I refused an exclusive contract with Universal and only signed one contract at a time and managed to survive.

Her debut is in Blake Edwards’ The Pink Panther (1963), a slapstick comedy starring David Niven as a jewel thief and Peter Sellers as an inept detective. Claudia is an exotic princess. Other movies she makes during her stint in Hollywood showcase her versatility. They include Circus World (1964, a drama), Blindfold (1965, a romantic comedy) and The Professionals (1966, a Western).

Claudia Cardinale surrounded by photographs of herself

1962. Claudia Cardinale beams at the camera, as well she may. On the back of the print is a copyright notice for Guglielmo Coluzzi. He has three films to his credit as a stills photographer on IMDb but he seems to have worked also as a paparazzo. You can find a selection of his work at Rome's il museo del louvre.

Claudia Cardinale posing for Franco Rossi

1967. A caption (translated from the original French) on the back of the print outlines what’s going on in Claudia’s life:

Claudia Cardinale has barely returned from America after completing her role in the film "The Professionals" with Burt Lancaster. She is due in Paris in a few days to make agreements with producer Marcel Pagnol about the film "The Baker's Wife" alongside Zero Mostel. Meanwhile, Claudia is dubbing her film "A Rose for All" (with her in the photo is director Franco Rossi). She has also made a lot of purchases because she is finishing furnishing her new house on Via Flaminia.

It looks like La Femme du Boulanger didn’t go into production. According to IMDb, Franco Rossi’s film, A Rose for All (Una rosa per tutti), was released in the US in 1967 as Every Man’s Woman. There are agency stamps on the back of the print for Pierluigi, Marie Claire and APIS.

Claudia Cardinale poses for a girl with a camera

1965. Claudia Cardinale poses for a girl with a camera, and a pretty meaningful one at that. The identity of the girl behind the camera is a mystery, but the photographer responsible for this shot is identified on the back of the print as Araldo De Crollalanza. (There is also an Ifot International Foto Service stamp.) Unfortunately, there's almost no information about Araldo De Crollalanza online, plus searches tend to throw of a Fascist politician with the same name.

Claudia Cardinale and Philip Dunne looking through a camera on the set of Blindfold

Claudia Cardinale and Philip Dunne on the set of Blindfold

1965. A caption on the back of the photo sets the scene:

CAMERA EYE
Director Philip Dunne and Italy’s most exciting new star Claudia Cardinale, look through the camera on the set of “Blindfold,” a Universal-Seven Pictures’ suspense comedy in which Miss Cardinale makes her Hollywood film debut opposite Rock Hudson.

Claudia and Rock will go on to become close friends.

But Claudia, no fool and increasingly independent-minded, recognises the dangers as well as the advantages that working in Hollywood entails. Her thinking is spelled out in an article in the 8 July 1966 issue of LIFE magazine headlined Claudia Cardinale, a wary beauty, is afraid Hollywood will ruin her:

Claudia Cardinale has a problem. … Her problem is, now that she has finally agreed to work in Hollywood, she is afraid she will be over-glamorized and exploited as Sophia [Loren] was. Her first Hollywood movie, the recent Blindfold, confirms Claudia’s worst fears. And she has two more coming up soon. Between Hollywood chores, she rushes away to make films in Italy, Spain, Brazil, anywhere but Hollywood. It is a strenuous way to conduct a career, but Claudia, who has won several top acting awards, is trying to grow into a better actress. She gets paid less in Europe. “If you have to give up the money, give it up, she insists. I do not want to become a cliché.”

1. The Pink Panther

1963. Claudia Cardinale getting plastered and flirting with David Niven – a lovely combination of innocence and seduction.

2. The Pink Panther

Claudia Cardinale reminiscing (in French with subtitles) about The Pink Panther and other films, illustrated with video clips.

3. Once Upon a Time in the West

1968. The original trailer in high definition of Once Upon a Time in the West directed by Sergio Leone and starring Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Henry Fonda and Claudia Cardinale.

4. Once Upon a Time in the West

1968. A farewell scene, close to the end of the movie, where the close-ups, the pacing and the soundtrack are just perfect.

After a few years, she does indeed move back permanently to Europe. More significant than any of her Hollywood movies is the spaghetti western in which she subsequently stars: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Although it proves popular with neither critics nor audiences on its release, it will become a cult classic. And once again, Claudia Cardinale offers insights into what it’s like working, in this case, with director Sergio Leone and co-stars Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda:

I was the only woman in that movie! The thing is … I love music. And that was the first time I worked on a film where the music was composed [by Ennio Morricone] before the cameras started rolling. So before shooting my scenes, Sergio would play the music … which really helped me get into the part. … On set, Charlie Bronson never talked to anybody. And Henry Fonda, we started shooting that love scene in the hammock and he told me he’d never done a love scene before. … It was difficult. His wife was sitting next to the camera, staring at me the whole time.

Independence and a new direction

Claudia Cardinale married Franco Cristaldi in 1966 but she leaves him to marry film director Pasquale Squitieri in 1975. At the same time she terminates her contract with Vides Films. Unsurprisingly, this impacts her professional as well as her personal life:

Well, it was a shock. Meeting Pasquale I interrupted a system that was built with and around me. Cristaldi was a very important producer and nobody wanted to go against him, nobody wanted to oppose him. So I don’t know if it was he who wanted it or if it was an involuntary consequence, but certainly both Pasquale and I found obstacles in the work. And this is a certain fact.

1965. Claudia Cardinale with Luchino Visconti on the set of Sandra.

The good news is that Claudia’s career is no longer being managed by someone else. She can do as she chooses – not that she’s been exactly passive up to now. Still:

For more than 15 years, I was considered and treated like an object or a project to be manufactured and merchandised. For much of my adult life, I was someone else’s creation – they decided what movies I should play in, what clothes to wear, how to have my hair done and even what friends to see. It was as if I were something operated by remote control.

She believes that “Women, after all, are capable of more in life than making love – but it is very difficult to find intelligent parts for women in films.” She continues to be busy but in Cristaldi’s absence, judging by reviews, the quality of the films in which she stars does drop off to an extent.

Her favourite and most acclaimed movie from the 1980s is Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982). Hertzog’s approach to film-making is both uncompromising and notorious in the industry. He disregards storyboards, emphasises improvisation, and puts his cast and crew into situations like those of the characters in the film.

Set in the early 20th century, the plot of Fitzcarraldo revolves around an Irishman who wants to build the largest opera house in the world in the middle of the Amazon jungle. The making of the movie is the subject of a feature-length documentary – Burden of Dreams (1982). Claudia remembers it as a pretty surreal experience:

But the greatest adventure was with Werner Herzog, making Fitzcarraldo in Peru. I don’t know how I survived! We were in the middle of the jungle. Wild animals. You didn’t know what to eat. All the Indians were naked. My costume was this white dress, and they thought I was a goddess, so I had to be on set all the time otherwise the Indians would leave. When we finished, they came to the airport and brought me gifts. I was crying so much! I love Werner Herzog, but for some of the crew, the experience was so powerful they actually went insane. … We worked in extreme conditions, it was unbearably hot, Jason Robards at some point climbed up a tree and demanded a New York steak to come down. Eventually he was replaced by Klaus Kinski.

Claudia plays Kinski’s lover, a successful brothel-keeper who finances his demented project. Vincent Canby of The New York Times points out that although she doesn’t have much time on screen, she sets the movie’s comic tone and manages to turn Kinski into a “genuinely charming screen presence,” something he’s not exactly noted for. Herzog’s diary seems to confirm this. The director observes that Claudia Cardinale is an antidote to her co-star’s megalomania, “a great help because she is such a good sport, a real trouper, and has a special radiance before the camera. In her presence, [Kinski] usually acts like a gentleman.”

1. Fitzcarraldo

The original trailer in high definition of Fitzcarraldo directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale, José Lewgoy and Miguel Ángel Fuentes.

2. Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo notebook

Claudia Cardinale in conversation with Werner Herzog about the notebook he kept while making Fitzcarraldo.

3. Burden of Dreams

A minute and a half from Burden of Dreams, Les Blank's feature-length documentary of the tumultuous production of Fitzcarraldo.

4. Mark Kermode reviews Fitzcarraldo

A couple of minutes that focus as much on the story behind the film as on the film itself.

Fitzcarraldo wins the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

Claudia Cardinale’s ongoing career and reflections

Claudia Cardinale just keeps going. By 2022 she has 128 credits as a movie actress on IMDb. This in spite of embarking on a career in the theatre in 2000, age 62. Reflecting on her choices and her experience, she says:

As a teenager I was wild, a bit crazy, a tomboy, I got into fistfights with boys just to show them girls can be stronger than them. I have always accepted challenges. When I was young, I remember catching the train after it had pulled out, I used to run and jump on even though I was on the platform, perfectly in time for the departure, just to show I could do it. This attitude also helped me on set when I found myself the only woman surrounded by men, I wasn’t intimidated, I felt able to compete with them. My philosophy of life has always been: If you want, you can. You can’t be weak if you want to do this job. … If you’re not strong, you lose your personality. … You play the role in front of the camera but you have to know who you are afterwards. Inner strength is the most important.

Claudia Cardinale at her dressing table

1962. The expression on Claudia Cardinale's face suggests that she's a lot of fun. Love the caricatures of herself flanking the mirror. The photo is printed on Paris Match Marie Claire paper and has an International Magazine Service copyright stamp on the back dated 5 March 1962.

Claudia Cardinale posing for Franco Rossi

1967. A caption (translated from the original French) on the back of the print outlines what’s going on in Claudia’s life:

Claudia Cardinale has barely returned from America after completing her role in the film "The Professionals" with Burt Lancaster. She is due in Paris in a few days to make agreements with producer Marcel Pagnol about the film "The Baker's Wife" alongside Zero Mostel. Meanwhile, Claudia is dubbing her film "A Rose for All" (with her in the photo is director Franco Rossi). She has also made a lot of purchases because she is finishing furnishing her new house on Via Flaminia.

Claudia Cardinale larking about with Sammy Davis Jr

Around 1963. There's no information at all on this photo or its companion. The subject and style suggest they were taken in Claudia's early days in the US. She and Sammy do seem to be having a rare old time. In both shots, the photographer has ensured that she doesn't look taller than him (Sammy was 5 foot 6 inches tall). Here, he has him crouching and peeping out from behind her.

Claudia Cardinale larking about with Sammy Davis Jr

One aspect of that is her determination not to get involved with her co-stars. How else could she possibly reject the advances of the likes of Marcello Mastroianni, Alain Delon and Jean Paul Belmondo?

Yes, they courted me, I confess. But I have always wanted to separate the life of an actress from my private one. So I didn’t let myself be seduced. We were friends, we joked, but I didn’t go further also because I knew how much the stories were embroidered on the sets.

Claudia Cardinale descending a staircase

1961. That's a very stylish window. Not sure the carpet is the perfect match. There are agency stamps on the back of the print for Agence Dalmas and International Magazine Service, the latter dated 21 August 1961.

Claudia Cardinale posing in a doorway

1961. This must be part of the same shoot as the staircase photo. Not only is Claudia wearing the same shift dress. There are the same agency stamps on the back of the print for Agence Dalmas and International Magazine Service, the latter dated 21 August 1961.

Claudia Cardinale in a baroque setting

Around 1961. The photographer has signed the back of the print and identified the location as Paris. Photo by Peter Basch.

Claudia Cardinale posing on a gangway

1968. Printed on Paris-Match Marie Claire paper and stamped in ink on the reverse ‘COPYRIGHT / INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE / SERVICE (IMS) / 7 DEC 1968 / TORSGAT. 21 STOCKHOLM SWEDEN’. Also annotated in pencil ‘PM 923 C. Cardinale’.

But she makes an exception for Rock Hudson:

We were very close. At that time in America if it was known that you were gay you could not work in Hollywood. So we pretended to be a couple. Always arm in arm around town. Rock had lunch and dinner at my place a lot. I stayed close to him to the very end.

He in turn is protective of Claudia, aware of her discomfort in the US.

1964. Claudia Cardinale at the Gala of the Union of Artists at Winter Circus, Paris. Photo by Philippe Le Tellier.

Claudia’s awards and achievements

Claudia Cardinale has won numerous awards including a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 1993 Venice Film Festival and a Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival. Between those two in 1999 she was awarded the Légion d’Honneur in France and later, in 2001 and 2002, corresponding honours in Portugal and Italy.

In March 2000 she became UNESCO goodwill ambassador for the defence of women’s rights.

Want to know more about Claudia Cardinale?

The quotes above are from various sources. Sometimes I’ve combined quotes from different sources because they’re on the same topic. In these cases I’ve used an ellipsis (…) to separate them.

The Continental Actress by Kerry Segrave and Linda Martin has a chapter on Claudia Cardinale. Online sources include:

Claudia Cardinale’s website – official but limited
Wikipedia – much more detailed, complete with citations
IMDb – go-to website for Claudia’s filmography
TCM – worth a visit but not available in all countries.

Also online, there are articles about and interviews with Claudia in the Los Angeles Times, The Local, Breaking Latest News, Italy magazine, Euronews, The Guardian, Variety, Dazed and Vanity Fair.

Virginia Hill – a seriously bad good-time girl

Virginia Hill, queen of the mob, mixed it with the most powerful and ruthless gangsters of her day. Streetwise, sassy and shameless, she serviced her bosses every which way.

They in return let her in on their secrets and showered her with cash to fund the lifestyle of ostentatious luxury to which she aspired. She was an impostor who gatecrashed Hollywood and seduced (literally as well as metaphorically) its denizens. It was too good to last.

1941. Virginia Hill and friends celebrate Hallowe’en. Read more…

Virginia Hill’s Hollywood heyday

January 1942, and Virginia Hill is having the time of her life. She’s been in Hollywood for a couple of years and she’s the talk of the town. Now, according to Modern Screen, she’s about to marry actor John Carroll:

It’ll be a great day for Hollywood when John Carroll takes plumpish, black-eyed Virginia Hill to be his blushing bride. If the pair do bounce to the altar, John will bring into the great Movietown family the most fantastic personality it has known since Bogus Prince Romanoff was in his prime.
At 23, Virginia Hill is a woman of mystery. Her wealth is inestimable and untraceable, though it is surmised her three marriages (the first occurred when she was 14) might have had something to do with it. Her extravagances are notorious. A $1,000 evening gown, the gem of Designer Irene’s fall collection, draped her body only three or four times before she gave it to a friend. Other gowns for which she pays from $100 to $400 are often discarded without being worn at all.
Her parties are reminiscent of something that went out with the Romans. Starting with two or three couples, Virginia frequently finds herself winding up the night hosting a mob of fifty. One evening she rented the Mocambo and its entire staff for a private shindig. Conservative estimators say that little social cost her well over $3,000 [roughly equivalent to $50,000 in today’s money]!
It’s always cash on the line for Virginia Hill. She travels with gobs of it tied in a rubber band. She’s never used a checkbook even to pay bills for her Chicago apartment, her New York and Hollywood hotel suites, automobile upkeep, maid and secretary.
There’s no denying, Husband Number Four will have to step fast to keep pace with the mad, exciting Miss Hill. But if anyone can do it, John Carroll is the boy. He’s not exactly a rest cure, himself!

In the event, the marriage never materialises. It’s a lucky escape for John. Virginia’s days of blushing at anything are way behind her. With Miss Hill, John would have got more than he’d bargained for. A lot more. Her past is murky, her future fraught with danger. The truth is she’s entangled with the mob and she’s the girlfriend of notorious gangster, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.

November 1941. Virginia Hill, cash dispenser. Read more…

Virginia Hill’s back story

Virginia Hill grows up in Bessemer, Alabama, an industrial city dominated by steelmaking. One of ten brothers and sisters, she is something of a wild child, perhaps because she’s lonely and insecure. Her father remembers how she tried to buy friendship:

One time Tabby [his nickname for her] charged several alarm clocks to my account, and then gave them away to the playmates who looked up to her, just as her frequent guests of ‘The Nightclub World’ were to do later for Tabby’s generosity.

It’s a pattern that will persist throughout her life. Her parents divorce when she is 14, and she moves with her mother to Marietta, Georgia. She can’t get away soon enough. Age 17, she marries George Rodgers, four years her senior, and heads for Chicago, where she promptly dumps him.

She soon falls in with the city’s mafia, sleeping her way straight to the top. Key to her progress is Joe Epstein, Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik’s chief accountant (Guzik is the Chicago Outfit’s treasurer and financial wizard). Epstein takes Virginia under his wing and introduces her to various prominent members of the gang. She’s well able to take things on from there herself.

At a 1936 Christmas party thrown by Charlie Fischetti (Al Capone’s cousin), she gives blow jobs to her host and several other top mobsters right in front of the guests as well as Fischetti’s wife – classy. It’s around this time that she starts keeping a diary of all the financial shenanigans she’s in on.

The following year, she is dispatched to infiltrate the New York mafia and find out whether they’re paying their dues to their Chicago counterparts. She loses no time in embarking on an affair with Joe “Adonis” Doto, one of the New York mob’s two most powerful bosses (the other is Charles “Lucky” Luciano).

In 1938 she becomes a courier and dealmaker. It’s the start of years of zigzagging across the US between New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Mexico, often with her brother Chick, running cash and drugs and sleeping around. In Mexico, among others she sleeps with the son of a Mexican finance minister in order to milk him for information and get him on side. In Hollywood, Errol Flynn is just one of the visitors to her bedroom.

Mid-1940s. Portrait of Virginia Hill. Read more…

Bugsy Siegel

Passing through Alabama in January 1939, Virginia takes the opportunity to seduce, marry and divorce in short order Osgood Griffin, a naive 19-year-old football player and, crucially, a son of one of the state’s richest families. The divorce enables her not just to get her hands on some useful alimony but also to marry (but only briefly) Carlos “Miguelito” Valdez. The big deal here is that it gives Valdez, a Mexican national, the right to enter the US in order to consolidate the drug alliances he and Virginia have established.

While all this is going on, she hitches up with John “Handsome Johnny” Roselli, whom the Chicago outfit have sent out West to work under Jack Dragna, the boss of the of the Los Angeles crime family. Roselli becomes the conduit through which Virginia will report the goings-on she finds out about back to the bosses in Chicago, who in turn will relay the information to their New York counterparts.

Virginia also has a brief affair with Pasquale “Pat” DiCicco, an agent, movie producer, occasional actor and playboy, as well as an alleged mobster working for Luciano. His ex-wife, actress Thelma Todd, died in 1935 under suspicious circumstances.

DiCicco introduces Virginia to actor George Raft, known (like Frank Sinatra) for his mafia connections, who in turn puts her back in touch with Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel – his nickname a reference to his reputation as a thug with a short fuse who gets off on violence and killing. He has graduated from petty extortion to being an associate in the New York syndicate run by Adonis, Luciano and Meyer Lansky.

Virginia first met Bugsy in a Brooklyn bar in NYC in February 1937. They spent the next night fucking each other’s brains out. Even as an experienced practitioner, she will remember it as the best sex she ever had. Later that year, the lovers had to part when Siegel was dispatched by his New York partners to Los Angeles to look after their gambling, racetrack and bookmaking rackets on the West Coast.

Bugsy is regarded as a dangerously loose canon by the mobs in Chicago and New York and not to be trusted. So Dragna instructs Virginia to get into bed (literally as well as metaphorically) with him and report back about what he’s up to. She’s more than happy to oblige and it’s not long before she and her brother Chick move into a house with Bugsy.

It’s the start of probably the best five or so years of Virginia’s life. Not only is she hitched with her favourite (albeit violent and abusive but perhaps that’s part of the attraction) lover, but thanks to her underworld connections she has the spondoolies to fund the lavish parties and publicity on which she thrives. What’s more, Bugsy is a good looking guy who can turn on the charm and whose underworld associations give the Hollywood community a pleasurable frisson. It’s all fine and dandy.

1947. Virginia Hill in Paris with her mother. Read more…

The end of the affair

But all good things must come to an end, and so it proves for Virginia Hill and Bugsy Siegel.

He is a slick operator with delusions of grandeur and an eye to the main chance that will be his downfall. In 1944 he spots the potential to turn an unpromising plot on a dusty road on the edge of Las Vegas into a glamorous casino hotel financed by the mob. Back then the city was nothing like the gambling Mecca it would go on to become.

The plot is being developed by Billy Wilkerson, founder/owner of The Hollywood Reporter, Tinseltown’s first daily entertainment trade newspaper, and various nightclubs. But he’s run into financial problems, which gives Bugsy and his associates the chance to step in. In May 1946, Bugsy, increasingly obsessed with the project and arrogant to boot, engineers Wilkerson’s departure and his own appointment as president with total control.

But whereas Wilkerson has experience of construction projects, Bugsy doesn’t. He’s out of his depth. This combined with constant meddling and insistence on upping the specification at every turn means that costs start to spiral out of control. Meanwhile, in spite of multiple ongoing infidelities on both their parts, he’s still besotted with Virginia. His name for the hotel, Flamingo, is apparently inspired by his nickname for her.

She, though, prefers the razzmatazz of Hollywood to the rudimentariness of Las Vegas and knows which side her bread is buttered. Bottom line: she’s not prepared to move permanently to Las Vegas but she does make regular visits that combine passion (bonking and bust-ups) and business. The business in this case is espionage. The mob are worried about the overruns and suspect Bugsy of taking a cut without telling them. Virginia’s job is to record the costs in her diary and report back on how things are going and how the money is being spent.

Caving in to pressure from his backers, Bugsy opens the Flamingo in December 1946 before it’s finished. It’s a disaster. The hotel has to be closed again post haste and another round of funding agreed. The Flamingo reopens in March 1947 and this time it’s a very different story. The punters and the money pour in. But this brings with it another problem for Bugsy. The mob reckon it’s payback time and they’re not prepared to hang around.

When Bugsy stalls, they lose their patience. Virginia is summoned to Chicago and on 16 June put on a flight to Paris. She tells Bugsy she’s there to buy wine for the Flamingo. In practice, she’s out of the way for the final act of the drama.

Four days later at around 22:30, Bugsy enters 810 N Linden Drive, Rudolf Valentino’s old house in Beverly Hills, now rented by Virginia. He makes his way to the sitting room, turns on the lights and makes himself comfortable on the sofa to catch up on the day’s paper. Perfect for the assassin lurking in the shadows outside. The first shot explodes through the window and hits Bugsy in the head, blowing his eye 15 feet from his body. The subsequent bullets crash into his body, breaking his ribs and tearing up his lungs. It’s like something out of The Godfather.

1. Bugsy Siegel – American Mombster

A brief and entertaining biography of Virginia Hill’s favourite lover.

2. The Kefauver Committee

An overview of organized crime in the US and the Kefauver Committee’s attempts to tackle it.

3. The Kefauver hearings

Extracts from the television coverage of the Kefauver hearings including a clip of Virginia Hill.

Virginia Hill gets her comeuppance

From here on, it’s going to be mostly downhill (pun intended) for Virginia. Bugsy’s demise may have come as no surprise to her, but it still leaves her shaken and insecure. She’s still up to her old tricks, including an affair with wealthy 21-year-old heir Nicholas Fouilette. But within months she’s taken an overdose, the first of at least four suicide attempts that year. Rumour has it that she’s terrified that she’ll be next on the mob’s hit list because, with her diary and everything else she knows, she’s just too much of a risk.

Still, she returns to the US and meets her sponsor, Joe Epstein a couple of times. He wants her to hand over her diary; she won’t. The following year, she settles for a time in Mexico City but soon she’s inexorably drawn back to the US. In early 1950, she travels to Sun Valley, Idaho, where she meets and marries ski instructor Hans Hauser, a former world champion downhill skier from Austria. That November she gives birth to a son, Peter, and the family moves to a luxurious home in Spokane, Washington. It’s around this time that the IRS seems finally to have noticed that Virginia’s and her husband’s lavish lifestyle has no apparent means of support.

1951 is the year it all comes crashing down. In March, Virginia is summoned before the Kefauver Committee, which is investigating organized crime. The hearing is televised, and Virginia puts in a performance to fit the occasion. Her cheeky, evasive, sometimes vulgar answers to the prosecution make an entertaining change from the bland, stodgy, often bureaucratic language used by the other courtroom participants. Try this:

6 July 1951. Virginia Hill chatting at El Paso Airport. Read more…

Senator Tobey: “But why would Joe Epstein give you all that money, Miss Hill?”
Virginia Hill: “You really want to know?”
Senator Tobey: “Yes, I really want to know.”
Virginia Hill: “Then I’ll tell you why. Because I’m the best cocksucker in town.”
Senator Kefauver: “Order! I demand order!”

Writer and director Robert C Ruark reckoned that Virginia’s testimony “created a new art form” and observed that:

Virginia Hill seems to have been an Alice in a wonderland of illegality…. Any secrets she holds are safe, because this is a girl who don’t know nothin’ about nobody and is little loath to say so.

On her way out of the courtroom when her questioning was over, she slugs Marjorie Farnsworth, a reporter for the New York Journal-American and screams at the others “I hope the atom bomb falls on every one of you!”

She leaves as something of a celebrity but it’s a Pyrrhic victory. The IRS and the Immigration and Naturalization Service have Virginia Hill and Hans Hauser in their respective sights. He is not a US citizen and when he is ordered to leave the US voluntarily, the couple go into hiding. In July the IRS slaps a demand for $161,000 on Virginia for unpaid income taxes for the years 1942 through 1947. In August they seize and auction her personal belongings but the sale raises just $41,000.

By then, Virginia has fled to Europe, never to return to the US.

Curtains for Virginia Hill

Virginia spends the last 15 years of her life in Europe. She’d like to return to the US but she can’t do a deal to avoid prison. She also tries to go to Cuba and Mexico, but her attempts are barred. In the mid-1960s she separates from her husband and moves with Peter to a modest hotel in Salzburg. On 22 March 1966 she leaves her home and fails to return. Two days later, her body is found in the snow, alongside a tree-shaded brook just outside the city. Two days later, the Los Angeles Times reports:

Virginia Hill’s Death Ruled Poison Suicide SALZBURG, Austria (UPI)
Virginia Hill, onetime glamour girl of the American underworld, took her own life by poison, an Austrian court ruled Friday. A farewell note said the 49-year-old auburn-haired beauty was “fed up with life.”
A medical examiner who performed an autopsy ruled she died of poisoning, and a coroner’s court ruled her death was suicide. Her body was found Thursday in a mountain meadow outside the city near a night club. She had been missing two days. Miss Hill, estranged from Austrian ski instructor Hans Hauser, the last of four husbands spent her last years living in a rooming house on a small side street with her 15-year-old son who worked as an apprentice waiter. Friends said she had left a will with a lawyer in Switzerland. Miss Hill was born in Lipscomb, Ala. She rocketed into the headlines when Benjamin (Bugsie) Siegel was shot to death in her Beverly Hills home in 1947. She was in Paris at the time.

Given her previous seven suicide attempts, the pathologist’s verdict is probably correct. But rumours continue to circulate that shortly before her death she tried to blackmail Joe Adonis, then exiled in Italy. And that he subsequently sent his henchmen to force-feed her the drugs.

7 July 1951. Virginia Hill at Denver Airport. Read more…

The photos

You’ve probably noticed that the quality of most of the photos of Virginia Hill here is not up to aenigma’s usual standard. Most of the photos on aenigma are studio shots or the product of planned outdoor sessions, taken by great photographers using great equipment. They are posed, lit and enhanced in post-production (typically in the darkroom and/or by retouching the negatives). Their purpose is to promote a movie, a star or a look by creating an aspirational, even iconic, image.

That may have been the case with the head-and-shoulders portrait of Virginia Hill but the print looks like it has been made from a second- or third-generation negative. The print itself has also been heavily retouched and coarsened to make it suitable for reproduction in low-quality newsprint. The cropping marks further detract from the image.

With all the distracting detail in the background, the Hallowe’en party photo, while clearly posed, is an informal snapshot, which could have been taken by a studio or a press photographer. It’s a bit of fun. The photo of Virginia perched on a sideboard console hasn’t been so messed about but again it’s little more than a snapshop, likely taken at her home.

The photos of Virginia at Denver Airport and in Paris are clearly press shots, snapped on location in less-than-ideal conditions and using relatively cheap cameras. The photographers in these cases are the forerunners of the paparazzi.

The shot of Virginia at El Paso airport is a wirephoto. Wirephoto technology was introduced in 1935 and continued to be used by the newspaper industry until the mid-1970s. It involved scanning an original print and transmitting it over telegraph or telephone wires, a bit like a fax. Wirephotos typically suffer from poor contrast and lack sharpness. A wirephoto usually has an extended caption along one of its borders that is integrated into the image itself.

Want to know more about Virginia Hill?

There are lots of accounts of the life and exploits of Virginia Hill and a good many discrepancies between them. I’ve done my best to take a balanced view but who knows where the truth lies.

As part of my research, I read a couple of books:

Virginia Hill – Mafia Molls – Beautiful Broads With Brass Balls: Volume 3 by Joe Bruno and Lawrence Venturato
We Only Kill Each Other: The Life and Bad Times of Bugsy Siegel by Dean Jennings.

The former is wonderfully scurrilous and sensational and casts its two protagonists in pretty much the worst possible light. The latter, on which the 1991 movie, Bugsy, starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, is based, takes the opposite view. It gives Bugsy and Virginia the benefit of the doubt whenever possible and indeed suggests on the back cover that Bugsy was “The man who invented Las Vegas.”

The TV movie, The Virginia Hill Story (1974) starring Dyan Cannon, takes a similarly romantic view, characterising her as a naive girl eventually betrayed by her movie magazine fantasies of glamour and romance – courageous and vulnerable, sexy and tender.

Other sources include Newspapers, Wikipedia, Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, The Mob Museum and Nevada Public Radio.

Stars

Growing up

Gina Lollobrigida and Milko Skofic

Howard Hughes and Hollywood

Gina Lollobrigida – anything but “the girl next door”

1. A look back at the life and films of Gina Lollobrigida

2. Trapeze (1956)

3. Solomon and Sheba (1959)

4. Top 10 Gina Lollobrigida Movies of All Time

Gina’s second career

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Françoise Dorléac – from dead end to dead

Françoise Dorléac, Catherine Deneuve and François Truffaut

1. La peau douce (1964)

2. Cul-de-sac (1966)

3. Les demoiselles de Rochefort (1967)

4. Les demoiselles de Rochefort (1967)

Françoise Dorléac – a tribute

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Corinne Dibot becomes Corinne Calvet

Corinne goes to Hollywood

Corinne Calvet and William Meiklejohn

Corinne Calvet, Rory Calhoun and Harry Cohn

Corinne Calvet and Hal Wallis

Corinne Calvet and Darryl Zanuck

1950. My Friend Irma Goes West

1952. The Name’s the Same

1989. Corinne Calvet vs Cesar Romero

1992. Corinne Calvet TV interview

What to make of Corinne Calvet?

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Claudia Cardinale’s teenage turbulence

1. I soliti ignoti

2. Il bell’Antonio

3. Rocco e i suoi fratelli

4. La ragazza con la valigia

Claudia’s early films

A year of contrasts and achievement

Il gattopardo (The Leopard)

Il gattopardo (The Leopard)

Otto e mezzo (8½)

Otto e mezzo (8½)

Once upon a time in Hollywood

1. The Pink Panther

2. The Pink Panther

3. Once Upon a Time in the West

4. Once Upon a Time in the West

Independence and a new direction

1. Fitzcarraldo

2. Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo notebook

3. Burden of Dreams

4. Mark Kermode reviews Fitzcarraldo

Claudia Cardinale’s ongoing career and reflections

Claudia’s awards and achievements

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Virginia Hill’s Hollywood heyday

Virginia Hill’s back story

Bugsy Siegel

The end of the affair

1. Bugsy Siegel – American Mombster

2. The Kefauver Committee

3. The Kefauver hearings

Virginia Hill gets her comeuppance

Curtains for Virginia Hill

The photos

Want to know more about Virginia Hill?

Other topics you might be interested in…