Monica Vitti

Monica Vitti (born 3 November 1931) is an Italian actress most widely noted for her frosty expressiveness and starring roles in films by Michelangelo Antonioni. Born Maria Luisa Ceciarelli in Rome, as a teenager she acted in amateur productions, then trained as an actor at Rome's National Academy of Dramatic Arts (graduating in 1953) and at Pittman's College, where she played a teen in a charity performance of Dario Niccodemi's La nemica. She tou... more

Monica Vitti (born 3 November 1931) is an Italian actress most widely noted for her frosty expressiveness and starring roles in films by Michelangelo Antonioni. Born Maria Luisa Ceciarelli in Rome, as a teenager she acted in amateur productions, then trained as an actor at Rome's National Academy of Dramatic Arts (graduating in 1953) and at Pittman's College, where she played a teen in a charity performance of Dario Niccodemi's La nemica. She toured Germany with an Italian acting troupe and her first stage appearance in Rome was for a production of Niccolò Machiavelli's La Mandragola. Vitti's first film role was in Ettore Scola's Ridere Ridere Ridere (1954) but her first widely noted performance was at the age of 26 in Mario Amendola's Le dritte (1958). In 1957 she joined Michelangelo Antonioni's Teatro Nuovo di Milano and later played a leading role in his internationally praised and award winning film L'avventura (1960) as a detached and cool protagonist drifting into a relationship... less