Born Maria Luisa Ceciarelli in Rome on 3 November 1931 to Adele Vittiglia and Angelo Ceciarelli. She took her stage name from her mother's maiden name.[4][5] Vitti acted in amateur productions as a teenager, then trained as an actress 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.[citation needed]
Vitti as Marisa Ceciarelli early in her career (1953)
In 1957 she joined Michelangelo Antonioni's Teatro Nuovo di Milano and dubbed the voice of Dorian Gray in the director's Il Grido (The Cry, 1957). Over the next several years in several "intense portraits of alienation she became the perfect mouthpiece for Antonioni himself".[9] She played a leading role in Antonioni's internationally praised film L'Avventura (1960) as a detached and cool protagonist drifting into a relationship with the lover of her missing girlfriend.[1][10] Giving a screen presence that has been described as "stunning", she is also credited with helping Antonioni raise money for the production and sticking with him through daunting location shooting.[citation needed]L'Avventura made Vitti an international star.[5] Her image later appeared on an Italian postage stamp commemorating the film.[11] According to The New York Times, Vitti's "air of disenchantment perfectly conveys the unreal aura of her heroines."[12]
Vitti's second English-language film was An Almost Perfect Affair (1979), directed by Michael Ritchie and co-starring Keith Carradine, which was set during the Cannes Film Festival.[29] A New York Times article from that period reported Vitti had resisted starring in American films as she did not like long travel, especially by air, and believed that her English was not of a high enough standard.[30] Indeed, such was her aversion to travelling from Europe that Paramount Pictures was apparently forced to cancel the first leg of a publicity tour organised in the US to promote the release of An Almost Perfect Affair.[31]
In 1989, Vitti tried writing and directing and created Scandalo Segreto (1990), in which she also starred alongside Elliott Gould.[16] The film was unsuccessful commercially and she then retired from cinema.[1] During the 1990s, she did television work, acting in the television miniseries Ma tu mi vuoi bene? (1992).[34]
In 1993, Vitti was awarded the Festival Tribute at the Créteil International Women's Film Festival in France.[35]
Personal life and death
Antonioni and Vitti met in the late 1950s, and their relationship grew stronger after L'Avventura was made, because it had shaped both their careers. However, by the late 1960s, they ceased working on films, making the relationship strained until it officially ended.[citation needed] In a later interview, Vitti stated that Antonioni ended their relationship.[citation needed]
For several years in the 1970s her partner was Carlo Di Palma, best known as a cinematographer though she starred in three films he directed.[22]
In 2000, Vitti married Roberto Russo, with whom she had been in a relationship since 1973.[36] She made her last public appearance in 2002 when she attended the Paris premiere of the stage musical Notre-Dame de Paris.[37][38] In 2011, it was disclosed that Alzheimer's disease had "removed her from the public gaze for the last 15 years".[39] In 2018, her husband confirmed she was still living at home with him in Rome and that he looked after her with the assistance of a caregiver.[40]
^Enrico Lancia (1998). I premi del cinema. Gremese Editore, 1998. ISBN978-8877422217.
^ abcArgentieri, Mino. "Vitti, Monica" (in Italian). Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani S.p.A. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
^ abcdLane, John Francis (2 February 2022). "Monica Vitti obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
^"Le dritte (1958)". Archivo del Cinema Italiano (in Italian). Retrieved 7 December 2022.
^In the Red Desert Manceaux, Michele. Sight and Sound; London Vol. 33, Iss. 3, (Summer 1964): 118.
^ abScandal, sex, lies and Vitti tapes: After a life in front of the camera, Monica Vitti has stepped behind it as director Vidal, John. The Guardian 11 May 1990: 36.