The Italian actress Monica Bellucci turns 60 tomorrow and has just returned from the Venetian applause for her appearance in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” directed by her new partner, Tim Burton, but her story comes from far away, from the small town of San Giustino, to a step away from the city of Castello, in Umbria, where he was born on September 30, 1964.
It is a fairy tale that is more similar to the stories of the Italian divas of the immediate post-war period than to the splendid reality that makes Bellucci an international star today.
It is there where Pasquale and Brunella’s daughter grew up, he was an employee and she was a housewife.
Since she was little she has had a woman’s figure, raven hair, an open smile; She went to school in Città di Castello where she obtained her classical high school diploma and to pay for university in Perugia she agreed to pose as a model.
The 80s were just beginning, there were no reality shows yet and her choice had already been made, a path that brought her closer to icons like Silvana Mangano, Sofia Loren and Marisa Allasio.
Between a thousand doubts and as many dreams, she arrived in Milan in 1988, hired by a fashion agency that would open the doors of the most prestigious catwalks for her.
Meanwhile, she got married (although her marriage to photographer Claudio Basso lasted a few weeks), left home, changed her Umbrian accent to go to the acting school she attended in the north, set her sights on Cinecittà, where she got her first contract for the television miniseries “Life with Children” by Dino Risi in the role of the young Elda who makes the much older Adriano (Giancarlo Giannini) lose his mind.
In a few months, two events change his life: he falls in love with his colleague Nicola Farron, with whom he will live for almost six years, and Francesco Laudadio offers him the leading role in “La riffa”, the film with which he debuts on the big screen.
For years she alternated acting with fashion catwalks that made her known abroad and made her a star of the jet-set.
“Bellucci is serious”, was heard in Cinecittà and, in fact, at the age of 30 he already knew how to act in English. That’s why Francis Ford Coppola cast her in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), while in Italy she worked with Carlo Vanzina, Maurizio Nichetti and Antonello Grimaldi.
The second decisive step in her acting career took place 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 broke out between the two and, meanwhile, proposals poured in. The union of this fascinating couple will last 14 years, marked by the birth of two daughters and characterized by Monica’s nomadic existence between London, Paris, Rome and Rio de Janeiro, where she later discovered that Cassel was leading a double love life.
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 for the first time in Cannes with “Bajo Suspicion”, by Stephen Hopkins, filmed alongside two sacred monsters such as Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman.
Monica Bellucci is at this point the most beloved Italian star in the world. She will cause a sensation 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 in the remix of the song, which is all the rage even in Asia .
The Italian diva scandalized the right people with the controversial “Irreversible”, by Gaspar Noè, due to the torrid rape scene performed with Cassel, she was able to return to Cannes as godmother of the 2003 edition of the festival, she was able to join the cast of “The Matrix ” (two episodes) and being Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”
She was 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 Bond Girl for “Spectre” along with the new 007, Daniel Craig; Emir Kusturica committed her to his side for a long time in the turbulent “On the Milky Road” (three years of filming with long pauses).
Once the love story with Cassel ended, she dedicated herself to her daughters (Deva recently debuted as an actress), she worked continuously in film and television in Italy, France and Hollywood, she received the first awards of her career, she returned to Cannes as a godmother, She made her theater debut as María Callas and met Tim Burton with whom she went to live in London.
They are snapshots of a career and an existence lived intensely, full of successes but always with an air of normality fiercely defended by the ephemeral glory of the catwalks.
In reality, Bellucci always remains Monica, able to make fun of her native accent (as in “N” by Paolo Virzì), 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 to Italy.
Like when in 2006 she accepted, without any compensation, to host the Rome Film Festival or displayed a distant and haughty demeanor (again full of self-irony) in two episodes of “Diabolik” directed by the Manetti brothers.
In short, at the dawn of a new life as a leading lady, the most famous Italian actress in the world can today look back with a smile. Of course, to paraphrase Celentano, “that girl has come a long way.”
