Alida Valli, the exquisitesly beautiful actress who played Kira in the Italian screen adaptation of Ayn Rand’s We The Living, died Saturday in Rome.
You can learn more about this movie version of Rand’s novel in our two part interview with Duncan Scott, who guided the restoration of the movie for American audiences, with Ayn Rand’s help, beginning in the 1960s.
From an article about Valli’s life in today’s Washington Post:
Alida Valli, 84, one of the exquisite beauties of Italian cinema who starred in Carol Reed’s “The Third Man” (1949) and Luchino Visconti’s “Senso” (1954) and more than 100 other films, died April 22 in Rome of undisclosed causes.
Ms. Valli proved her versatility as a long-suffering heroine in costume dramas and in the escapist “white telephone” films — named for their opulence — championed by Benito Mussolini. As a convent-bound girl led astray in “Manon Lescaut” (1940), based on a novel by Abbe Prevost, she was “not only tremendously beautiful but emotionally sincere,” a New York Times film critic wrote.
In 1946, Hollywood producer David O. Selznick signed Ms. Valli to a contract. Groomed for a major English-language career, she was given a screen billing with just her surname — Valli — to recall the European glamour of “Garbo.”
See the full article for more about Valli’s life and career.
UPDATE: The New York Times too has weighed in with an article about Valli’s life. Ditto The Austrailian.