Buon Compleanno !! Rosalba Neri

 

    A VERY special Happy Birthday to this blog's favorite actress. Born on this day in 1939 in Forli, Italy, she won several beauty contests as a young girl and later attended il Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (The Center for Experimental Cinematography) - that sounds like one heck of a film school ! She had an offer to attend the Actors Studio in the U.S., but for reasons never specified she did not accept. Her first role was in Pingunin ci guardano (The Penguins Watch Us) at the age of 15. Her last credited film was in 1977 and her last role was in the T.V. mini series Olge el Soui Fifli (Olga and Her Children) from 1985.
   I've included a couple of screen grabs of her below from the recent Italian DVD of Il Plenilunio Delle Vergini (AKA The Devil's Wedding Night 1973) in which Rosalba is interviewed in a documentary on the making of the film. She's appeared in a few of these recently and always looks to be very happy to reminisce about her films (she invariably finds a lot to smile about). I think she still looks pretty darn good. Her and Barbara Bouchet remain good friends to this day and its cool to picture them hanging out & exchanging pasta recipes and gossip and such. There was German TV special done on her in 2002 entitled The Italian Sphinx, which has yet to surface "out there".