Italy’s Valli, star of “Third Man,” dies

ROME (Reuters) – Alida Valli, one of Italy’s most famous
movie actresses, who starred in “The Third Man” and “The
Paradine Case,” has died aged 84.

Valli, who was also known by her family name Alida
Altenburger, died at home in Rome, her son told Reuters.

She rose to fame in Italy in the late 1930s and 1940s with
a string of romantic films that endeared her to her war-weary
compatriots and earned her the soubriquet “Italy’s girlfriend.”

Her beauty and understated acting also got her noticed by
Hollywood and when World War Two ended she was chosen to star
in two of the most famous films of the post-war era.

In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1947 courtroom thriller “The Paradine
Case,” she starred alongside Gregory Peck, while in the “Third
Man” she played the girlfriend to Orson Welles’ Harry Lime.

Welles later told his biographer Valli was “the sexiest
thing you ever saw in your life.”

She went on to work with many more of the 20th century’s
great directors, including Roger Vadim, Claude Chabrol, Luchino
Visconti, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pier Paolo Pasolini and
Bernardo Bertolucci.