Virna Lisi Profile

Virna Lisi

	(Virna Lisa Pieralisi)
8 November 36	is born in Ancona, Marches, Italy. Her brother, Ubaldo, will become a talent agent. She also has a sister, Esperia.
?	plans a business career but is discovered by Italian movie director Francesco Maselli
?	meets architect / owner a of construction business Franco Pesci backstage through her father
25 April 60	marries industrialist Franco Pesci after a four-month courtship
?	loses her first baby
July 62	her son, Corrado, is born. He’ll enter his father’s business.
64	is discovered by producer George Axelrod
?	meets Frank Sinatra at the How to Murder Your Wife party and will star with him in his upcoming Assault on a Queen
?	has five large houses in Rome, the Italian countryside, and the mountains
November 66	the press reports: “Virna Lisi, who stars in Not With My Wife, You Don’t, flashed her new 28-carat diamond ring at Miami Beach’s swank Eden Roc. She confided that her zillionaire husband Franco Pesci bought it for her at a sale. It was marked down from $285,000 to a mere $200,000…”
?	refuses the title role in Barbarella
March 67	in Milan, Italy, she comments on her breaking her 5-year contract with producer George Axelrod; she says she gave up Hollywood for “the happiness of living beside my husband and my son.”
September 69	is off to New York with her sister, Esperia Pieralisi, to publicize The Secret of Santa Vittoria
October 69	she and her husband attend the13th annual San Francisco Film Festival to promote The Secret of Santa Vittoria
December 70	accompanied by her sister, she films Un Beau Monstre in Paris
93	wins the Best Actress award in Cannes for her role of Catherine di Medici in Queen Margot. Clint Eastwood is one of the judges.
23 September 13	becomes the widow of Pesci
18 December 14	dies at age 78 in Rome, Italy, from cancer
?	is interred at Cimitero Flaminio, Rome

Sources: Starlet by Kim Holston, Who?s Who in Hollywood 1966, The Daily Times-News, Family Weekly, Screen Portraits, Syracuse Herald American, Newark Advocate, The Arizona Republic, Northwest Arkansas Times, The Lowell Sun, www.FindAGrave.com
Recommended Books:
Links: Filmography