In Remembrance: Alida Valli

     Alida Valli, the Italian actress who appeared with Orson Welles in The Third Man (1949), has passed away in Rome, Italy on April 22, 2006. She was 84.

     Valli was born Alida von Altenburger on May 31, 1921 in the city of Pola, in what is now Croatia. She made her film debut in the 1934 Italian feature Il Cappello a tre Punte (aka Three-Cornered Hat). She quickly graduated up to leading roles before briefly abandoning her career for a year in 1943, refusing to make propaganda films for the Fascist Italian government. Ultimately, she would appear in 30 Italian films before producer David O. Selznick brought her to Hollywood under contract in 1947.

     Hoping to replicate the success of his discovery of Ingrid Bergman, Selznick pressured director Alfred Hitchcock to cast her in his film The Paradine Case (1947). Although Hitchcock was friendly with the actress, he still felt she was wrong for the role. Billed simply as Valli, she starred in only five more English language films- The Miracle Of The Bells (1948), The Third Man, The White Tower and Walk Softly, Stranger (both 1950). Unfortunately, Valli was never able to rid herself of her thick accent and decided to return to Europe in 1951.

     There she starred in another 80 films including Luchino Visconti’s Senso (1954) and the cult classic Suspiria (1977) before retiring in 2002.