This is a fairy tale that resembles more the stories of post-war Italian divas than the splendid reality that it makes of Monica Bellucci today an international star.
Last Monday (30), the actress turned 60 and has just won applause at the Venice Film Festival for her participation in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”, directed by her new partner Tim Burton, but her story comes from far away, from the small village of San Giustino, a few steps from Città di Castello, in Umbria, where she was born on September 30, 1964.
It was in this area that the daughter of the worker Pasquale and the housewife Brunella grew up. From an early age, Bellucci attracted attention with her dark hair and open smile. She attended school in Città di Castello, where she obtained her high school diploma and, to pay for university in Perugia, agreed to pose as a model.
The 1980s were just beginning, reality shows didn't exist yet and her choice brought her closer to icons like Silvana Mangano, Sophia Loren, Marisa Allasio.
Amidst a thousand doubts and many dreams, Bellucci arrived in Milan in 1988, hired by a fashion agency that would open the doors to the most prestigious catwalks for her.
In the meantime, she got married (although her marriage to photographer Claudio Basso only lasted a few weeks), left home, changed her Umbrian accent and it was at Cinecittà where she got her first contract for the television miniseries “Vita coi figli”, by Dino Risi, in the role of the young Elda who drives the elderly Adriano (Giancarlo Giannini) crazy.
In just a few months, two events changed her life: she fell in love with her colleague Nicola Farron, with whom she lived for almost six years, and Francesco Laudadio offered her the leading role in “La riffa”, the film that would make her debut in cinemas.
For years, Bellucci alternated between acting and fashion shows, whose success made her famous abroad and a star of the jet-set.
“Bellucci is serious,” one could hear at Cinecittà, considering that, at the age of 30, she was already able to act in English. That’s why Francis Ford Coppola chose her in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992), while in Italy she worked with Carlo Vanzina, Maurizio Nichetti, Antonello Grimaldi.
The second decisive step in her acting career came in 1996. At the height of her popularity as a model, she accepted a film in France, “L'appartement” by Gilles Mimouni, with Vincent Cassel. Love blossomed between the two and led to a flood of proposals for her.
The fascinating couple's union lasted 14 years, marked by the birth of two daughters and characterized by Bellucci's nomadic existence between London, Paris, Rome and Rio de Janeiro, where she later discovered that Cassel was leading a double love life without her knowledge. Four years later, however, Italian cinema offered her a new and important opportunity, after numerous films shot in France. Giuseppe Tornatore made her the absolute protagonist of “Malena”, while she landed at the Cannes Film Festival for the first time with the feature film “Under Suspicion”, by Stephen Hopkins, which she filmed alongside two sacred monsters: Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman.
At the time, Bellucci was the most beloved Italian star in the world. She had become the sensation of the moment as Queen Cleopatra in the most successful title of the series “Asterix & Obelix” and the version of “Ti amo” (Umberto Tozzi), accompanied by her with great self-irony.
Next, the Italian diva could scandalize sensible people with the controversial “Irreversible”, by Gaspar Noè, for the torrid rape scene starring Cassel, with which she managed to return to Cannes as godmother of the 2003 edition of the festival.
Additionally, she joined the cast of “The Matrix” and became Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”
The Italian is now an icon of the 2000s and that's why Terry Gilliam dressed her as a witch in his version of “The Brothers Grimm”; Sam Mendes wanted her as a Bond Girl in “Spectre”, alongside the new 007, Daniel Craig; Emir Kusturica committed her to his side for a long time in the troubled “On the Milky Road” – three years of filming with long breaks.
After her love story with Cassel ended, she devoted herself to her daughters (Deva recently debuted as an actress), worked continuously in film and TV in Italy, France and Hollywood, received the first awards of her career, returned to Cannes as godmother, made her debut in the theater as Maria Callas, and began a relationship with Burton, with whom she moved to London.
These are moments from a career and an existence lived intensely, at the height of success, but always with an air of normality fiercely defended by the ephemeral glory of the catwalks.
In fact, Bellucci remains Monica, capable of mocking her native accent (as in Paolo Virzì’s “N”), a loving and very Mediterranean mother, a jealous and reserved lover, an international star who always loves to remember her roots and the debt of gratitude she owes to Italy. Like when in 2006 she accepted, without any compensation, to host the Milan Film Festival. Rome or displayed an aloof and haughty bearing in two episodes of “Diabolik,” directed by the Manetti Bros.
At the beginning of a new life as a leading lady, the most famous Italian actress in the world today can look back with a smile.
Of course, to paraphrase Celentano, “that girl has come a long way.” (HANDLE)
