Valentina Cortese

Valentina Cortese was born in Milan on New Year's Day of 1923.

She made her movie debut in 1940 and played many "ingenue" parts in Italian films of that period, before making a real sensation in Caccia all'uomo (1948) and Tempesta su Parigi (1948), playing both female leads, Fantine and Cosette (the film was a competent screen adaptation of the Victor Hugo classic "Les misérables").

The international success of the British-made melodrama The Glass Mountain (1949) brought her some Hollywood offers: she was very sensual as a truck-driver's mistress in Jules Dassin's film noir Thieves' Highway (1949), and particularly effective in Robert Wise's thriller The House on Telegraph Hill (1951), in which she portrayed a woman pursued by a killer.

She then returned to Europe and worked with many great directors, like Michelangelo Antonioni, who cast her in Le Amiche (1955), and Federico Fellini, who gave her a supporting part in his surrealist fantasy Juliet of the Spirits (1965).

When Cortese lost the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in Day for Night (1973) to veteran Ingrid Bergman (for Murder on the Orient Express (1974)), Bergman recognized Cortese in her speech, impromptu, noting Cortese should have won.

On July 28th 2019 TCM aired Thieves' Highway, after which host Eddie Muller stated that Valentina Cortese was still alive and living in Milan, Italy, even though she had passed away on July 10th.