Veronica Lario
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Veronica Lario (born on 19 July 1956 as Miriam Raffaella Bartolini) is an Italian actress, currently the wife of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
[edit] Biography
Born in Bologna, Lario was an actress in low budget films. In a famous scene in the 1982 film Tenebrae, directed by Dario Argento, she sits at a table by a window with a gun because she knows a killer is chasing her. An axe crashes through the window and chops her hand off. The blood spraying from her arm paints a wall before she is finished off by the killer. She also worked in theatrical plays with well-known actors; she retired from acting after meeting Silvio Berlusconi.
Married on 15 December 1990, Berlusconi and Lario have three children together: Barbara (1984) [1], Eleonora (1986), and Luigi (1988).
As the wife of the Italian premier, Veronica Lario chose to maintain a low public profile. She avoided most public events and meetings and she seldom accompanied her husband Silvio Berlusconi at official meetings. On the other hand, she has been well known to have publicly expressed political opinions in contrast with those of her husband (for example, on bioethics or defending pacifists protesting the war in Iraq).
Lario's husband has never been shy of mentioning her on public occasions, and he alluded at least once to a supposed affair between her and opposition politician Massimo Cacciari. [2]
On 31 January 2007, Lario said her dignity was damaged by comments Berlusconi reportedly made during the VIP party after a TV awards ceremony broadcast by one of his channels.
"If I weren't married I would marry you immediately", the 70-year-old media mogul told one woman, according to reports widely carried in the Italian press. He reportedly told another, "With you, I'd go anywhere".
Lario's letter appeared in La Repubblica, a left-leaning newspaper fiercely opposed to the conservative Berlusconi. She declared:
I see these statements as damaging my dignity. To both my husband and the public man, I therefore demand a public apology, since I haven't received any privately. I have faced the inevitable contrasts and the more painful moments that a long conjugal relation entails with respect and discretion.
"Now I write to state my reaction," added Lario, saying her husband's comments were "unacceptable" and could not be reduced to mere jokes.
But after few hours, Silvio Berlusconi wrote back a public letter to his wife and apologized for what he had said three days before.
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[edit] Notes
- ^ At this time Silvio Berlusconi was still married to Carla Elvira Lucia Dall'Oglio, from whom he was divorced in 1985.
- ^ While the supposed affair was only mentioned in gossip tabloids, on October 2002, during a press conference with Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Silvio Berlusconi said he ought to introduce his wife to Rasmussen, "the best looking prime minister in Europe and certainly more handsome than Cacciari". See also the Guardian on this episode.
