Lorella De Luca

Lorella De Luca (17 September 1940 – 9 January 2014) was an Italian film, television, and voice actress. One of the most recognized ingénues of Italian cinema during the mid-to-late 1950s, she is best known for having played naive young girls in dramas and comedies.

Lorella De Luca
De Luca in the movie Il bidone (1955)
Born	(1940-09-17)17 September 1940 Florence, Kingdom of Italy
Died	9 January 2014(2014-01-09) (aged 73) Civitavecchia, Rome, Italy
Other names	Hally Hammond
Occupations	Actress assistant director
Years active	1955–1984
Spouse	Duccio Tessari ​ (m. 1971⁠–⁠1994)​
Children	Federica Tessari Fiorenza Tessari

She was born in Florence, Italy, and, following her "discovery" at age 14, made her acting debut in the Federico Fellini film Il bidone (1955). De Luca's breakout role, however, came a year later following her performance in Dino Risi's comedy 'Poor, But Handsome (1956) and continued on in the genre, with appearances in Mario Monicelli films Fathers and Sons (1957) and Doctor and the Healer (1957), as well as in Duccio Tessari's spaghetti Westerns A Pistol for Ringo (1965) and its sequel The Return of Ringo (1965) with Giuliano Gemma.

Biography

Lorella De Luca was born in Florence, Italy on 17 September 1940. "Discovered" at the age of fourteen by a director who followed De Luca home, and convinced her father that she should be in films,^[1] she made her feature film debut in Federico Fellini's Il bidone (1955) as Patrizia, the young daughter of middle-aged con man Augusto (Broderick Crawford).^[2][3][4][5] She subsequently attended the prestigious "Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia" (Experimental Cinematography Centre) in Rome, and the following year appeared in what would be her breakout role in Dino Risi's Poor, But Handsome (1956) alongside other young actors Marisa Allasio, Renato Salvatori and Maurizio Arena.^[6][7] The success of the film made De Luca one of the most popular ingenues of Italian cinema; her freshness and grace endeared her to the public.^[8]

De Luca was one of several women romantically involved with her Poor, But Handsome co-star Maurizio Arena.^[9] She co-starred with Arena in Il principe fusto (1960), a film which he co-wrote, produced and directed. Their relationship created a minor scandal when it was revealed by the Italian media that Arena, after publicly announcing his intention to wed Anna Maria Pierangeli, was also engaged to De Luca.^[10]

She specialized in the character of the naive young girl, a kind of an Italian Sandra Dee, and appeared in a series of hit comedies: Fathers and Sons (1957)^[11] and The Doctor and the Sorcerer (1957) by Mario Monicelli, the latter starring Vittorio de Sica and Marcello Mastroianni, Sunday Is Always Sunday (1958) by Camillo Mastrocinque, First Love (1958) by Mario Camerini,^[12] Gianni Franciolini's romantic comedy Love on the Riviera (1958),^[13] and many others.^[8] In 1958, De Luca joined Alessandra Panaro and Mario Riva as a show girl in the popular TV quiz show Il Musichiere (The Musician). She also had minor roles in "sword-and-sandal" and "muscleman" films, often being cast as a princess or slave girl, such as Sheba and the Gladiator (1959) and Sign of the Gladiator (1965).^[5]

With the beginning of the 1960s, De Luca received more and more roles in commercial films. She had a brief, but memorable, foray into the Spaghetti Western genre. In 1965, under the pseudonym "Hally Hammond", she had supporting roles in A Pistol for Ringo^[14][15] and its sequel, The Return of Ringo, both directed by her future husband Duccio Tessari. De Luca appeared in nine other films directed by her husband, most notably, Una voglia da morire (1965) and Kiss Kiss...Bang Bang (1966),^[16][17] between 1965 and 1978. After 1967, with the birth of their two daughters Federica and Fiorenza Tessari, in addition to her losing interest as a character actor, she accepted only occasional parts during the next decade.

Her last acting roles were in The Fifth Commandment (1978)^[8] and the 1984 television miniseries Nata d'amore. She was actively involved in her husband's later career and was first assistant director in his final film There Was a Castle with Forty Dogs (1990). De Luca made one last appearance in Bonus malus (1993) and retired from the film industry after Tessari's death the following year.

Marriage

De Luca starred in a total of nine films directed by Ducio Tessari, whom she married in 1971, in addition to working behind the scenes as an assistant director.

Death

De Luca died on 9 January 2014, aged 73, after a long battle with a brain tumor, which had caused her to lose her vision sometime before her death.^[18][19][20]

Filmography

As an actress

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1955	Il Bidone	Patrizia
1956	Roland the Mighty	Alda / Aude
1957	Poor, But Handsome	Marisa Toccacieli	also known as Poor, But Beautiful
	A Tailor's Maid	Marcella Corallo
	Sette canzoni per sette sorelle	Giulietta
	The Mysteries of Paris	Maria, la Cantante
	Doctor and the Healer	Clamide	also known as A Tailor's Maid
	Pretty But Poor	Marisa Toccacieli	also known as Poor Girl, Pretty Girl
	L'ultima violenza	Lisa Carani
	Gente felice	Gioia
	Dinanzi a noi il cielo	Amichetta di Tom
1958	Napoli sole mio!	Lorella
	Sunday Is Always Sunday	Maria Luisa Gastaldi
	El hombre del paraguas blanco	Esperanza
	Il bacio del sole	Teresa
	Girls for the Summer	Lina	also known as Love on the Riviera
	Tuppe tuppe, Marescià!	Maria Paoletti
1959	First Love	Francesca
	Sheba and the Gladiator	Bathsheba, the Vestal
	Poor Millionaires	Marisa
	Ciao, ciao bambina!	Proietti, Gloria
	Wild Cats on the Beach	Lisa
	La duchessa di Santa Lucia	Fernanda, la nipote di Carmela
	Quanto sei bella Roma	Lorella
	Agosto, donne mie non vi conosco	Anna Moriconi
1960	Il principe fusto	Angela
	Caccia al marito	Giulia
1961	Beauty on the Beach
	Apolytrosis	Eleni
1962	Charge of the Black Lancers	Samal
	Taras Bulba, the Cossack	Natalia
	La notte dell'innominato
1963	The Shortest Day	Erede Siciliana	Uncredited
	Shéhérazade
1964	Le fils de Tarass Boulba	Nadia
1965	Una voglia da morire	Marisa
	A Pistol for Ringo	Miss Ruby	as Hally Hammond
	The Return of Ringo	Helen Brown / Hally Fitzgerald	as Hally Hammond
1966	Kiss Kiss...Bang Bang	Frida Kadar
1967	Per amore... per magia...
1971	The Bloodstained Butterfly	Marta Clerici
1974	Tough Guys	Anne Lombardo
1976	Sexycop
1978	The Fifth Commandment	Mutter Redder
1993	Bonus malus	Signora Altoviti
2009	A Greek Western Tragedy	Herself	Video documentary short

As an assistant director

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1978	La morte risale a ieri sera	(assistant director)
1978	Winged Devils	(assistant director)
1990	There Was a Castle with Forty Dogs	(first assistant director)

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1984	Nata d'amore		TV mini-series

References

1. "Discovery of Lorella De Luca." Cosmopolitan. Sept. 1961: 52+. ("Discovery of Lorella De Luca (left) reads like script: at fourteen, she was spotted by director, who followed her home, convinced father she should be in, films. Now 21, she is a talented actress.")
2. Sadoul, Georges. Dictionary of Films. Trans. Peter Morris. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1972. (pg. 32) ISBN 0-520-02152-5
3. Alpert, Hollis. Fellini, a life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. (pg. 104) ISBN 0-7432-1309-2
4. Bondanella, Peter E. A History of Italian Cinema. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009. (pg. 150) ISBN 1-4411-6069-8
5. Hughes, Howard. Once Upon a Time in the Italian West: The Filmgoers' Guide to Spaghetti Westerns. New York: I.B. Tauris & Co., 2004. (pg. 20) ISBN 1-85043-896-X
6. Rondi, Gian Luigi. Italian Cinema Today, 1952–1965. New York: Hill and Wang, 1966 (pg. 157).
7. Cowie, Peter, ed. International Film Guide 1983. London: The Tantivy Press, 1983.
8. "Lorella De Luca". Biografia. MyMovies.it. Retrieved 8 January 2012.
9. Gundle, Stephen. Death and the Dolce Vita: The Dark Side of Rome in the 1950s. Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 2011. (pg. 227) ISBN 0-85786-049-6
10. Allen, Jane. Pier Angeli: A Fragile Life. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2002. (pp. 159–160); ISBN 0-7864-1392-1 ("The press claimed they were inseparable. However, when Arena publicly announced his intention of marrying Anna Maria Pierangeli, it was revealed that he already had a fiancée, a starlet named Lorella De Luca")
11. Cardullo, Bert. Vittorio De Sica: Director, Actor, Screenwriter. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2002. (pg. 120) ISBN 0-7864-1135-X
12. Maltin, Leonard. Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide 2001. New York: Plume, 2000. (pg. 460); ISBN 0-452-28187-3
13. Blum, Daniel. Daniel Blum's Screen World 1965. Vol. 16. New York: Crown Publishers, 1966. (pg. 185); ISBN 0-8196-0306-6
14. Frayling, Christopher. Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone. 2nd ed. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1998. (pg. 263) ISBN 1-86064-200-4
15. Hughes, Howard. Once Upon a Time in the Italian West: The Filmgoers' Guide to Spaghetti Westerns. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006. (pg. 31); ISBN 1-85043-896-X
16. Parish, James and Michael Pitts. The Great Spy Pictures II. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow, 1986 (pg. 178); ISBN 0-8108-1913-9
17. Mavis, Paul. The Espionage Filmography: United States Releases, 1898 through 1999. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2001 (pg. 168); ISBN 0-7864-0861-8
18. WENN.Com (16 January 2014). "Actress Lorella De Luca dies". hollywood.com. Archived from the original on 16 January 2014. Retrieved 16 January 2014.
19. "Addio a Lorella De Luca, Recitò in "Poveri ma belli"". Corriere.it (in Italian). RCS Mediagroup S.p.a. 10 January 2014. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
20. "È morta l'attrice Lorella De Luca". Civonline (in Italian). Retimedia. 10 January 2014. Archived from the original on 13 January 2014. Retrieved 14 January 2014.

Further reading

• Bertarelli, Massimo. Il cinema italiano in 100 film: i 100 film da salvare. Rome: Gremese Editore, 2004. ISBN 88-8440-340-5
• Bruschini, Antonio and Antonio Tentori, ed. Western all'italiana: The Specialists. Firenze: Glittering lmages, 1998.
• Giacovelli, Enrico. La commedia all'italiana. 2nd ed. Rome: Gremese Editore, 1995. ISBN 88-7605-873-7
• Giusti, Marco. Dizionario del Western all'Italiana. Italy: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 2007.
• Masi, Stefano and Enrico Lancia. Les séductrices du cinéma italien. Rome: Gremese Editore, 1997. ISBN 88-7301-075-X

External links

• Lorella De Luca at IMDb
• Lorella De Luca at TV Guide
• Lorella De Luca at Rotten Tomatoes