Lorella De Luca


Lorella De Luca was an Italian film, television, and voice actress. One of the most recognized ingenues of Italian cinema during the mid-to-late 1950s, she is best known for having played naive young girls in dramas and comedies.
She was born in Florence, Italy and, following her "discovery" at age 14, made her acting debut in the Federico Fellini film Il bidone. De Luca's breakout role, however, came a year later following her performance in Dino Risi's comedy Poor, But Beautiful and continued on in the genre, with appearances in Mario Monicelli films A Tailor's Maid and Doctor and the Healer, as well as in Duccio Tessari's Spaghetti Westerns A Pistol for Ringo and its sequel The Return of Ringo with Giuliano Gemma.

Biography

Lorella De Luca was born in Florence, Italy on 17 September 1940. "Discovered" at the age of fourteen by a director who followed De Luca home, and convinced her father that she should be in films, she made her feature film debut in Federico Fellini's Il bidone as Patrizia, the young daughter of middle-aged con man Augusto. She subsequently attended the prestigious "Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia" in Rome, and the following year appeared in what would be her breakout role in Dino Risi's Poor, But Beautiful alongside other young actors Marisa Allasio, Renato Salvatori and Maurizio Arena. The success of the film made De Luca one of the most popular ingenues of Italian cinema; her freshness and grace endeared her to the public.
De Luca was one of several women romantically involved with her Poor, But Beautiful co-star Maurizio Arena. She co-starred with Arena in Il principe fusto, a film which he co-wrote, produced and directed. Their relationship created a minor scandal when it was revealed by the Italian media that Arena, after publicly announcing his intention to wed Anna Maria Pierangeli, was also engaged to De Luca.
She specialized in the character of the naive young girl, a kind of an Italian Sandra Dee, and appeared in a series of hit comedies: Fathers and Sons and The Doctor and the Sorcerer by Mario Monicelli, the latter starring Vittorio de Sica and Marcello Mastroianni, Sunday Is Always Sunday by Camillo Mastrocinque, First Love by Mario Camerini, Gianni Franciolini's romantic comedy Love on the Riviera, and many others. In 1958, De Luca joined Alessandra Panaro and Mario Riva as a show girl in the popular TV quiz show Il Musichiere. She also had minor roles in "sword-and-sandal" and "muscleman" films, often being cast as a princess or slave girl, such as Sheba and the Gladiator and Sign of the Gladiator.
With the beginning of the 1960s, De Luca received more and more roles in commercial films. She had a brief, but memorable, foray into the Spaghetti Western genre. In 1965, under the pseudonym "Hally Hammond", she had supporting roles in A Pistol for Ringo and its sequel, The Return of Ringo, both directed by her future husband Duccio Tessari. De Luca appeared in nine other films directed by her husband, most notably, Una voglia da morire and Kiss Kiss...Bang Bang, between 1965 and 1978. After 1967, with the birth of their two daughters Federica and Fiorenza Tessari, in addition to her losing interest as a character actor, she accepted only occasional parts during the next decade.
Her last acting roles were in The Fifth Commandment and the 1984 television miniseries Nata d'amore. She was actively involved in her husband's later career and was first assistant director in his final film There Was a Castle with Forty Dogs. De Luca made one last appearance in Bonus malus and retired from the film industry after Tessari's death the following year.

Marriage

De Luca starred in a total of nine films directed by Tessari, whom she married in 1971, in addition to working behind the scenes as an assistant director.

Death

De Luca died on 9 January 2014, aged 73, after a long battle with a brain tumor, which had caused her to lose her vision sometime before her death.

Filmography

;As an actress
YearTitleRoleNotes
1955Il BidonePatrizia
1956Roland the MightyAlda / Aude
1957Poor, But BeautifulMarisa Toccacieli
1957A Tailor's MaidMarcella Corallo
1957Sette canzoni per sette sorelleGiulietta
1957The Mysteries of ParisMaria, la Cantante
1957Doctor and the HealerClamide
1957Poor Girl, Pretty GirlMarisa Toccacieli
1957L'ultima violenzaLisa Carani
1957Gente feliceGioia
1957Dinanzi a noi il cieloAmichetta di Tom
1958Napoli sole mio!Lorella
1958Sunday Is Always SundayMaria Luisa Gastaldi
1958El hombre del paraguas blancoEsperanza
1958Il bacio del soleTeresa
1958Love on the RivieraLina
1958Tuppe tuppe, Marescià!Maria Paoletti
1959First LoveFrancesca
1959Sheba and the GladiatorBathsheba, the Vestal
1959Poveri milionariMarisa
1959Ciao, ciao bambina!Proietti, Gloria
1959Costa AzzurraLisa
1959La duchessa di Santa LuciaFernanda, la nipote di Carmela
1959Quanto sei bella RomaLorella
1959Agosto, donne mie non vi conoscoAnna Moriconi
1960Il principe fustoAngela
1960Caccia al maritoGiulia
1961Beauty on the Beach
1961ApolytrosisEleni
1962Charge of the Black LancersSamal
1962Taras Bulba, the CossackNatalia
1962La notte dell'innominato
1963The Shortest DayErede SicilianaUncredited
1963Shéhérazade
1964Le fils de Tarass BoulbaNadia
1965Una voglia da morireMarisa
1965A Pistol for RingoMiss Rubyas Hally Hammond
1965The Return of RingoHelen Brown / Hally Fitzgeraldas Hally Hammond
1966Kiss Kiss...Bang BangFrida Kadar
1967Per amore... per magia...
1971The Bloodstained ButterflyMarta Clerici
1974Tough GuysAnne Lombardo
1976La madama
1978The Fifth CommandmentMutter Redder
1993Bonus malusSignora Altoviti
2009A Greek Western TragedyHerselfVideo documentary short

;As an assistant director
YearTitleRoleNotes
1978La morte risale a ieri sera
1978Winged Devils
1990There Was a Castle with Forty Dogs

Television

Video games