Virna Lisi

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Virna Lisi (b. September 8, 1937 in Ancona, Italy as Virna Lisa Pieralisi) is an Italian film actress.

She began her film career as a teenager in 1953. Cast more for her stunning looks than talent, her early films included La Donna del giorno (1956), Don't Tempt the Devil (1962) , and the Italian-made spectacle Romolo e Remo (1961).

The pert and sexy star also made a decorative dent in Hollywood comedy as a tempting blue-eyed blonde starring opposite Jack Lemmon in How to Murder Your Wife (1965), and appearing with Tony Curtis in Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966).

Confined to the same type of glamour roles, she returned to Europe within a couple of years but hardly fared better in such mediocre movies as Arabella (1967).

In later decades, however, a career renaissance occurred for Virna. She began to be perceived as more than just a tasty dish, giving a wide variety of mature, award-winning performances. It all culminated in the role of a lifetime with the film La Reine Margot (1994), in which she played a marvelously malevolent Catherine de Medici and won both the César and Cannes Film Festival awards, not to mention the David di Donatello award, the Italian version of the "Oscar".

[edit] Trivia

Alternated filming activity with television and stage acting, namely at Piccolo Teatro di Milano, where she did "I giacobini" by Federico Zardi, under the direction of Giorgio Strehler. She was one of the stars launched as a successor to Marilyn Monroe in the United States, in the late '60s.

The '80s Argentinian band Sumo (led by an Italian singer), made a song for her. The singer's brother is the actor Andrea Prodan, who appeared with her in the movie I ragazzi di via Panisperna (1988).

Lisi was cast in the title role in Barbarella (1968), but she turned it down and returned to Italy.