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The film Barabba (1961) she made in Italy with Anthony Quinn, Silvana Mangano, Vittorio Gassman and Ernest Borgnine. Her final American film role was in When Time Ran Out (1980). In Europe she was in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Le Amiche (1955), Gérard Brach’s The Boat on the Grass (1971), Terry Gilliam’s British film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), and in Franco Zeffirelli projects such as the film Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972), the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth (1977) and the film Sparrow (1993). In recent years there were various scandals and arrests as people close to here were suspected of stealing from her – she had an impressive jewellery collection. Her only son, Jackie Basehart, was born from her marriage to actor Richard Basehart (1951 until their dìvorce in 1960). Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, of which there is a video recording, is legendary among Italian theatre-goers. When she was just fifteen, she began a relationship with conductor Victor de Sabata, but her relationship with the director Giorgio Strehler, founder of the Piccolo Teatro in Milan where she also worked, was very important to her. In 1952 she and a very young Audrey Hepburn played sisters in the British thriller Secret People. Mankiewicz’s The Barefoot Contessa (1954), with Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien. Cobb, The House on Telegraph Hill (1951) directed by Robert Wise and co-starring Richard Basehart and William Lundigan, and Joseph L.
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She starred in the 1949 film Malaya with Spencer Tracy and James Stewart, Jules Dassin’s Thieves’ Highway (1949) with Richard Conte and Lee J. She signed a contract with 20th Century Fox in 1948, though, like her compatriot Alida Valli, would eventually break it to return to Europe. Her first important film role was in the 1948 Italian film Les Misérables with the young Marcello Mastroianni (she played both Fantine and Cosette). The great Italian actress had been confined to a wheelchair for several years but was still receiving friends in her beautiful house in Piazza Sant’Erasmo. Valentina Cortese died this morning in her home in Milan – she was 96. Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window).Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window).Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window).Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window).Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window).Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window).