Valentina Cortese

Valentina Cortese
Cortese in The Jester's Supper (1942)
Born	Valentina Elena Cortese Rossi di Coenzo (1923-01-01)1 January 1923 Milan, Kingdom of Italy
Died	10 July 2019(2019-07-10) (aged 96) Milan, Italy
Other names	Valentina Cortesa
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1941–1993
Spouses	Richard Basehart ​ ​ (m. 1951; div. 1960)​ Carlo de Angeli ​ ​ (m. 1980; died 1998)​
Children	Jackie Basehart

Valentina Elena Cortese Rossi di Coenzo (1 January 1923 – 10 July 2019), sometimes credited as Valentina Cortesa,^[1][2] was an Italian film and theatre actress.^[3][4][5] Her screen career spanned over 100 productions across over five decades, from 1941 until 1993. Cortese won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and was nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, for her performance in the film Day for Night (1973). In 2013, she received the French Order of Arts and Letters.

Over the course of her career, Cortese worked with many important Italian and international directors, including Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Franco Zeffirelli, François Truffaut, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Terry Gilliam.^[3] She was also active on stage, particularly in the company of Giorgio Strehler. Critic Morando Morandini described her as "one of the last divas of Italian theatre.... a mix of floral liberty, subdued decadence, belated D'Annunzio-ism and neurotic modern sensibility."^[6]

Cortese was born on New Year's Day in Milan. Her parents were Olga Cortese and Napoleone Rossi di Coenzo, of noble origins.^[7][8] Cortese's father abandoned her mother shortly before her birth, and she was raised by her mother in the countryside, before being sent to Turin to live with her maternal grandparents in 1930.^[3][4][5]

After meeting conductor Victor de Sabata, then married with children and 31 years her senior, she quit high school and followed him to Rome, where she enrolled at (and later graduated from) the National Academy of Dramatic Arts (Accademia d'arte drammatica).^[4]

She first appeared on stage before receiving a contract at Scalera Film in 1941^[4] and giving her film debut with a small role in L'orizzonte dipinto.^[5]

Cortese's first important film roles were in Roma Città Libera (1946), Les Misérables and The Wandering Jew (both 1948).^[3] 1948 also saw the end of her relationship with de Sabata.^[4] Her appearance in the British production The Glass Mountain (1949) led to numerous roles in international productions, including Jules Dassin's Thieves' Highway (1949), opted by her then-partner Dassin over the originally cast Shelley Winters,^[9] and Robert Wise's The House on Telegraph Hill (1951).^[3] In 1951, she married her The House on Telegraph Hill co-star Richard Basehart, with whom she returned to Italy.^[3] Cortese continued to appear in national and international productions; the most notable of this era include Joseph Mankiewicz's The Barefoot Contessa (1954) and Michelangelo Antonioni's Le Amiche (1955).^[3] For the latter, she received the Nastro d'Argento for Best Supporting Actress.^[10]

In 1960, Cortese and Basehart divorced, and Basehart returned to the US, leaving in her custody their only child, Jackie.^[3] In the following years, she worked for directors as diverse as Mario Bava (The Girl Who Knew Too Much, 1963), Bernhard Wicki (The Visit, 1964), Federico Fellini (Juliet of the Spirits, 1965), Robert Aldrich (The Legend of Lylah Clare, 1968) and Joseph Losey (The Assassination of Trotsky, 1972).^[3] For her performance in François Truffaut's Day for Night (1973) she received the BAFTA Award,^[11] the National Society of Film Critics Award^[12] and the New York Film Critics Circle Award,^[13] and was nominated for the Academy Award which ultimately went to Ingrid Bergman.^[3][4][14] In her acceptance speech, Bergman remarked that she felt Cortese should have won the award.^[15]

While her later films were mostly of lesser artistic interest, Cortese was continuously successful on stage,^[3] working with Giorgio Strehler, with whom she had a long-lasting relationship,^[3][4] Franco Zeffirelli,^[3][4] Luchino Visconti^[3] and Patrice Chéreau.^[5] In 1980, she married industrialist Carlo De Angeli.^[4] Her last film was Zeffirelli's 1993 Sparrow.^[3]

In 2017, Francesco Patierno documented her life in the film Diva!, based on her 2012 autobiography Quanti sono i domani passati ("How many tomorrows have gone by").^[3]

Cortese died on 10 July 2019, aged 96.^[3][16]

• Media related to Valentina Cortese at Wikimedia Commons
• Valentina Cortese at IMDb
• Porro, Maurizio (2 April 2012). "Cortese: i foulard, l'amore e la mia bimba mai nata". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Retrieved 6 January 2023.
• Pizzuto, Angelo (17 July 2019). "In memoria di Valentina Cortese. Forza e sovranità della "delicatezza"". Sipario (in Italian). Retrieved 7 January 2023.