Laura Betti

Laura Betti née Trombetti 1 May 1927 31 July 2004 was an Italian actress known particularly for her work with directors Federico Fellini Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci She had a long friendship with Pasolini and made a documentary about him in 2001 Betti became famous for portraying bizarre grotesque eccentric unstable or maniacal roles like Regina in Bernardo Bertoluccis 1900 Anna the medium in Twitch of the Death Nerve Giovanna la pazza in Woman Buried Alive hysterical Rita Zigai in Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina Therese in Private Vices Public Virtues Emilia the servant in Pier Paolo Pasolinis Teorema for which she won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress and Mildred the protagonists wife in Mario Bavas Hatchet for the Honeymoon Born Laura Trombetti in Casalecchio di Reno near Bologna she grew up to be interested in singing She first worked professionally in the arts as a jazz singer and moved to Rome Betti made her film debut in Federico Fellinis La Dolce Vita 1960 In 1963 she became a close friend of the poet and movie director Pier Paolo Pasolini Under his direction she proved a wonderful talent and played in seven of his films including La ricotta 1963 Teorema Theorem 1968 his 1972 version of The Canterbury Tales in which she played the Wife of Bath and his controversial Salo 1975 120 Days of Sodom In 1976 Betti portrayed Regina a cruel and erotomaniacal fascist in Bernardo Bertoluccis Novecento 1900 She also played Miss Blandish in his Last Tango in Paris 1972 though her single scene was deleted In 1973 she dubbed the voice of the Devil for the Italian version of William Friedkins The Exorcist From the 1960s Betti dedicated much of her time to literature and politics She became the muse for a number of leading political and literary figures in Italy and came to personify the revolutionary and Marxist era of 1970s Italy In 2001 she made a documentary about Pasolini Pier Paolo Pasolini e la ragione di un sogno She also donated her papers related to their long friendship along with more than 1000 volumes and many documents connected to Pasolini to the archives of the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna thus creating the Centro Studi Archivio Pier Paolo Pasolini This Centro strongly wanted by Betti owns also thousands of photograph and all the works of Pasolini poetry literature cinema and journalism After her death in 2004 her brother Sergio Trombetti has donated all the personal documents of her career to the Centro that has absorbed them under the name Fondo Laura Betti Source Article Laura Betti from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30