Stefania Sandrelli

Stefania Sandrelli — Biography

Stefania Sandrelli was born on 5 June 1946 in Viareggio, Italy, the daughter of Florida and Otello Sandrelli, who ran a guesthouse there; her father died when she was eight. She studied ballet and played the accordion as a girl, made her screen debut at fifteen in Mario Sequi's Gioventù di notte, and won the Miss Cinema Viareggio beauty contest that same year. Her career was truly launched by Pietro Germi's Divorce Italian Style (1961), opposite Marcello Mastroianni; she worked with Germi three more times, in Seduced and Abandoned, The Climax and Alfredo, Alfredo, and soon became one of the leading figures of the "commedia all'italiana." She appeared in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist and 1900, and in Ettore Scola's We All Loved Each Other So Much and La terrazza, the latter earning her the Nastro d'Argento for best supporting actress in 1980; in 1983 she gave her career fresh momentum with Tinto Brass's The Key. She received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2005 Venice Film Festival and was made a Chevalier of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2012. She reached a new generation of viewers with her role in 2024's Parthenope. Her daughter, Amanda Sandrelli, born in 1964 from her long relationship with singer-songwriter Gino Paoli, has likewise pursued a career in acting.