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Joseph Cotten and Alida Valli in The Third Man.
Also see The Third Man in the German Classroom
from About.com
Alida Valli was born in the Adriatic harbor town of Pula in the Italian province of Pola on May 31, 1921. At the time, this region, on a peninsula known as Istria (Istrien in German), had only been part of Italy for three years. In 1947 it became part of Yugoslavia and it now belongs to Croatia (Kroatien). Istria was under Austrian rule from 1797 until 1918 and the end of the First World War. Alida Valli was born Alida Maria Laura von Altenburger. Her father was an Austrian baron and philosophy professor who was married to an Italian.
ALIDA VALLI
Alida Maria Laura von Altenburger
FILMOGRAPHY
Selected Films |
Semana Santa/Angel of Death
2002 (Italy, France) |
| A Month by the Lake 1995 (USA) |
We the Living 1986 (USA)
Video release of 1942 Italian film |
| The White Tower 1950 (USA) |
| Walk Softly Stranger 1950 (USA) |
| The Third Man 1949 (UK/USA) |
| The Miracle of the Bells 1948 (USA) |
| The Paradine Case 1947 (USA) |
Addio Kira!/Noi vivi 1942 (Italy)
Combined as "We the Living" in U.S. |
| Manon Lescaut 1939 (Italy) |
| I Due Sergenti 1936 (Italy) |
| Il Cappello a tre punte 1934 (Italy) |
| IMDb > Alida Valli |
In 1930, at the age of just nine, the aspiring actress began a long international, multilingual film career that only ended with her death in April 2006. Miss Altenburger took the screen name Alida Valli. In some of her films, including the original release of The Third Man, she was billed simply as “Valli.” Although most of her over 100 films were made in Italy and Europe, Valli spent a brief part of her career under contract to David O. Selznick in Hollywood. It was the Selznick connection that landed Valli the key role of Anna Schmidt in The Third Man. The producer was hoping to turn Valli into an Italian Ingrid Bergman. Although that never happened, her role in The Third Man was a highlight in her career, and certainly her most notable performance in an English-language film until her much later role in the 1995 production A Month at the Lake with Vanessa Redgrave.
In Hollywood under contract to Selznick, Valli made two films prior to her femme fatale role (as Anna Schmidt) in The Third Man. In The Peradine Case (1948) she costarred with Gregory Peck in a role that allowed her to show her true talents and rise above her image of just another pretty girl in mediocre films. Her role in The Miracle of the Bells (1948) with Frank Sinatra and Fred McMurray was a bit more fluffy. After her Third Man success, Valli appeared in two 1950 films (The White Tower and Walk Softly Stranger) before returning to Europe. But back in Italy her career took a serious hit in 1954 when she became involved in an infamous drug and sex scandal reminiscent of “La dolce Vida.”
Despite the scandal, Valli would again become one of Italy’s most popular and successful movie stars. Although Hollywood failed to use her talents to their fullest, Valli thrived in the Italian cinema. Prior to her Hollywood excursion, Valli had made an Italian film that has recently been “rediscovered.” In the 1942 film We the Living (originally the two-part Non Vivi/Addio Kira), the 21-year-old Valli plays a Russian anticommunist who cozies up to a party official in order to get medical treatment for her lover (Rossano Brazzi, later of “Some Enchanted Evening” fame). The film was based on an Ayn Rand novel and was soon banned by the Italian fascists for its antiauthoritarian focus.
With all her on-screen success, Alida Valli’s personal life was often rocky. In 1944 she married the surrealist painter and jazz composer Oscar de Mejo. The newly married couple then moved to the United States. Their marriage ended some years later. Valli’s Italian mother died in Como in 1978.
M O R E > The Third Man in the German Classroom
at About.com
W E B > www.alidavalli.net (in Italian, French, German)
Copyright © 2002-2006 Hyde Flippo
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