Biographie
Italian stage actress known for her limited film appearances. Born in Modena on October 7, 1913, she was the fourth child of merchant Alberto Adani and his wife Pia Capri. Although she had no theatrical family background, her two sisters married into theatrical families, sparking her early interest in the stage. At fifteen, her brother-in-law, actor Ernesto Sabbatini, introduced her to Russian-born theatre director Tatyana Pavlova, who welcomed her into her company. Within a few years, she became one of Italy's most respected and acclaimed stage actresses, taking leading roles with various prestigious companies. In 1935, she and actor Renzo Ricci founded their own theatrical company, which thrived until it was forced to close during World War II. During the war and beyond, she portrayed iconic female roles such as Ophelia, Marguerite Gauthier, and Juliet. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, she starred in significant plays including Tobacco Road, The Typewriter, and Samuel Beckett's Happy Days, the latter of which she also successfully toured in the United States. She made her film debut at age twenty in Aria di Paese (1933) and appeared in just twelve more feature films, along with several television roles, over the next five decades. Under director Giacomo Vaccari, she featured in TV productions like La fine della signora Cheyney (adapted from Frederick Lonsdale's The Last of Mrs. Cheyney) and the 1960 miniseries La Pisana. In 1947, she married Duke Luigi Visconti di Modrone, brother of renowned director Luchino Visconti, who had both directed and acted alongside her in theatre. Widowed twenty years later, she remarried in 1969 to Admiral Ernesto Balbo Bertone, Count of Sambuy and Duke of Nocera. With her second husband, she lived in a villa near Superga Hill, close to Turin. She passed away at age 82 on August 30, 1996, in Moncalieri, survived by her second husband. She is buried in the Chieri cemetery near her home.
