Delia Scala - ballerina, actress and TV presenter

Much-loved star was pioneer of Italy’s musical comedy genre 

Delia Scala's versatility as an entertainer
gained her big roles in musical comedy

Delia Scala, a ballerina who became a stage and screen actress, helped popularise musical comedy in Italy in the 1950s and ‘60s and presented light entertainment shows on television, died on this day in 2004 in Livorno, in Tuscany.

Born Odette Bedogni in Bracciano, Lazio in 1929, she had suffered a recurrence of the breast cancer for which she had been successfully treated in the 1970s, passing away at the age of 74.

Her personal life was marred by tragedy. Her father and one of her three husbands died in road accidents, while the racing driver to whom she was engaged after her first marriage was annulled was killed on the track. Her third husband died from cancer.

Yet in her career she enjoyed considerable success and became hugely popular with Italian audiences.  After her death, the President of Italy at the time, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, described her as a "model of enthusiasm and rigorous professionalism" and said he rated her among "the most beloved and popular artists in the history of Italian entertainment".

As a child, Scala inherited a love of music and dance from her mother, Iolanda, who chose Odette as her name after the title of one her favourite songs. When her father, Aldo, a test pilot with the Italian air force, was transferred from Bracciano to Malpensa, near Milan, the family settled in Gallarate, near Varese and Lake Maggiore. 

Already showing talent, the eight-year-old Odette was given a place at the Ballet School of Teatro alla Scala, Milan’s prestigious opera house, where she would remain for seven years.  Her family moved again, when her father left the air force, relocating to Campagnola Emilia, some 168km (100 miles) away from Milan, but Odette was able to continue her nascent dance career by staying in Milan, at first with an aunt and later in lodgings.

She performed on stage at La Scala many times, her ballet credits including Ottorino Respighi's La bottega fantastica and Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty. Another highlight was appearing as a dancer in Ruggero Leoncavallo’s opera Zazà, starring the celebrated tenor, Beniamino Gigli.  

Her move into films came after she was chosen to play a leading role in a documentary about La Scala’s ballet school. Other opportunities to appear on screen soon followed, in which she first performed under her own name before adopting Lia Della Scala as a professional name. The change to Delia Scala was at the suggestion of Italo Calvino - later to become famous as a novelist - who was at the time head of the press office at Lux Films.

Scala had embarked on a career as a ballet
dancer before the big screen beckoned

From the late 1940s, having been spotted initially by the director Luigi Zampa, who gave her a part in his 1948 film, Anni difficili (Difficult Years), Scala was seldom not working. 

Important roles followed in Eduardo De Filippo’s Napoli milionaria (1950); Roma ore 11 (1952), a neorealist film by Giuseppe De Santis; Jacques Becker’s Grisbì (1954); and Beauties on a bicycle (1951) by Carlo Campogalliani, where she appeared alongside Silvana Pampanini.

The breadth of her acting skills was shown off further in Gran Varietà (1953), alongside Vittorio de Sica and Lea Padovani, where she impressively danced a Charleston, and in Signori si nasce (1960) by Mario Mattoli, alongside the comedy great, Totò.

It was in part as a consequence of those performances that she was chosen to make her theatre debut with Giove in doppiopetto (Double-breasted Jupiter) at the Teatro Lirico in Milan in 1954. The production is considered to be the first example of commedia musicale, an italian musical genre created by playwrights Pietro Garinei and Sandro Giovannini, with the collaboration of the musician and songwriter Gorni Kramer. 

As Scala’s stature in the genre grew, she found herself in demand and had roles alongside renowned performers such as Walter Chiari, Nino Manfredi, Paolo Panelli, Domenico Modugno, Gianrico Tedeschi, Mario Carotenuto and Renato Rascel.

Her popularity led also to Scala becoming one of the earliest of Italy’s television stars as the small screen began to play a part in the lives of Italians in the 1950s, co-hosting the TV show Lui e Lei with Nino Taranto, and Canzonissima with Manfredi and Paolo Panelli.

Scala shone in the world of television,
becoming a popular presenter

Away from her successful career, Scala’s quest for contentment in her personal life was repeatedly upended by tragedy. Her father was killed in 1947 at the age of 41, struck by a car near their home. A year later her first marriage, with a Greek soldier attached to a local partisan unit who was given shelter by her family, ended with separation. She was only 19.

The marriage was annulled, after which she became engaged to racing driver, Eugenio Castellotti. He died in 1957, losing control of his Ferrari while attempting a speed record at the Modena race track.

In 1967 she married Piero Giannotti, who died in 1982 when hit by a car while riding his motor scooter. Her third husband, the industrialist Arturo Fremura, died in 2001, from liver cancer.

Scala’s own health problems began in 1974 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 44. Happily, under the care of the distinguished oncologist Pietro Bucalossi and his assistant Umberto Veronesi, she underwent experimental radio and chemotherapy and recovered to live another 30 years.

Societal attitudes to cancer were much different then compared with today. When news of the diagnosis was leaked to the media - she had tried to keep it private - she lost some advertising contracts on the basis that being affected by cancer was perceived as “bad for her image.” 

Once she had recovered enough, she joined the tennis player Lea Pericoli, who had suffered a similar experience after being diagnosed with cancer while still competing, in campaigning to change attitudes. 

Scala herself presented a series of annual live shows entitled A Rose for Life at Lido di Camaiore on the Tuscan coast north of Pisa, together with Raimondo Vianello and Sandra Mondaini, a showbiz couple who had also faced cancer, in order to raise funds for cancer research and prevention.

Such was her commitment that, in 1982, she insisted on presenting the show on its planned date even though she had lost Piero, her second husband, only a few days earlier. 

Scala effectively retired from acting in the 1980s, her only subsequent part in a sitcom aired between 1996 and 1998. After marrying Fremura - a widower with four children - she spent the last two decades of her life in Livorno.

The monumental Orsini-Odescalchi Castle seems
to loom around every corner in Bracciano

Travel tip:

The town of Bracciano is situated about 40km (24 miles) northwest of Rome, rising above Lake Bracciano, a nearly circular volcanic lake. Bracciano’s centre retains a medieval feel, with narrow lanes, stone houses, and a skyline dominated by the great Orsini–Odescalchi Castle. The surrounding area is protected as the Bracciano-Martignano Natural Park, which keeps the lake pristine by limiting motorised boats and preserving the quiet, rural atmosphere. The earliest known structure was a 10th‑century watchtower, built to defend against Saracen raids, which became the heart of a fortified settlement of which the powerful Orsini family took control in 1234. They transformed Bracciano into a strategic stronghold, culminating in the late 15th century with the construction of the huge fortress today known as the Castello Orsini-Odescalchi, one of the best-preserved Renaissance fortresses in Italy. The Odescalchi family, who bought the castle from the Orsinis in 1696, still own it. With its towers, courtyards, frescoed halls, armouries, and sweeping views over the lake, it is easily Bracciano’s star attraction and a popular location for films and television dramas, as well as the backdrop for several high-profile celebrity weddings, including that of the Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. The Vigna di Valle airbase, where Delia Scala’s father was based at the time of her birth, now houses one of Italy’s most important aviation museums, housed in historic seaplane hangars.

Stay in Bracciano with Hotels.com

The canals of Livorno's popular Venezia Nuova
district come alive after dark

Travel tip:

Livorno, where Delia Scala spent the later years of her life, is the second largest city in Tuscany after Florence, with a population of almost 160,000, and the region’s great sea port. Ferries, cargo ships, cruise liners, fishing boats, and naval vessels all move through the harbour. Yet just beyond the cranes and docks you find a city shaped by centuries of immigration, free‑trade policies, and Medici ambition. Livorno, which began as a small coastal settlement, was for centuries overshadowed by nearby Pisa, whose republic controlled the area throughout the Middle Ages.  As it grew, the port was sold to Milan in 1399 and to Genoa in 1407 before it was purchased by Florence in 1421, bringing it under Medici rule for the next three centuries.  The Medici recognised Livorno’s strategic potential and rebuilt the harbour, fortified the town, and declared it a free port, attracting merchants from across Europe and the Mediterranean. As well as becoming a major commercial hub it became one of Italy’s most cosmopolitan cities, with significant Jewish, Greek, Armenian and Dutch Protestant minorities. The Medici legacy is visible in the 16th century red brick Fortezza Vecchia, that stands guard over the harbour. Other attractions include the Fortezza Nuova, also built by the Medici, which anchors Livorno’s popular Venezia Nuova district, with its network of canals, and the elegant Terrazza Mascagni, the seafront promenade, paved in a sweeping black‑and‑white checkerboard pattern, which carries the name of one of Livorno’s most famous sons, the opera composer Pietro Mascagni.

Find Livorno accommodation with Expedia

More reading:

Raimondo Vianello, a big-screen star who conquered television

Why comic actor Totò is still seen as one of Italy’s funniest performers

How Umberto Veronesi pioneered new treatments for breast cancer

Also on this day:

1623: The death of Venetian writer and statesman Paolo Sarpi

1926: The death of songwriter Giambattista De Curtis

1935: The birth of football coach Gigi Radice

1971: The birth of rugby star Paolo Vaccari

1977: The birth of Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female PM

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Il sorpasso - commedia all’italiana classic

Film regarded as director Dino Risi’s masterpiece

Jean-Louis Trintignant (left) and Vittorio Gassman
driving along Via Aurelia in Il sorpasso

Il sorpasso, which has come to be seen as one of the most influential Italian films of the 20th century and a defining example of the commedia all’italiana genre, was released for Italian cinema audiences on this day in 1962.

Directed by Dino Risi, produced by Mario Cecchi Gori and with Vittorio Gassman outstanding as one of the film’s male lead characters, made its debut in the United States in December of the following year under the title The Easy Life. It was also a pioneer for the so-called “road movie” in Italy.

It has been judged as such a significant contribution to Italian culture that in 2008, Il sorpasso - 'Overtaking' in Italian - was included in the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."

Its inclusion put it in the company of Bicycle Thieves, La strada, La dolce vita, Divorce Italian Style, Rocco and his Brothers and The Leopard among those movies to have made a lasting mark on the minds of Italian audiences.

Il sorpasso tells the story of two strangers - 36-year-old Bruno, a brash, carefree extrovert played by Gassman, and Roberto, a shy law student - who meet in Rome during a holiday and set off in a flashy Lancia Aurelia sports car on a spontaneous road trip through the city and the countryside of Lazio and Tuscany. 

Bruno’s reckless charm and devil-may-care approach to life draws Roberto into a whirlwind of fast cars, flirtations and impulsive adventures, sharply at odds with his own cautious nature. 

A publicity poster for Dino Risi's
Il sorpasso, released in 1962

In time, Roberto wishes he were more like Bruno, yet learns that his new friend has a broken marriage, a daughter whom he never sees and is running out of money, despised by his estranged wife for the shallowness of his character.

As they travel, the film highlights Italy’s booming consumer culture and generational tensions. What begins as a comic journey gradually darkens, culminating in a sudden, tragic accident as Bruno, addicted to il sorpasso - overtaking - inevitably attempts one risky manoeuvre too many.

Dino Risi directed more than 50 films over the course of a career spanning half a century but Il sorpasso is considered to be his greatest work and a cornerstone of commedia all’italiana, a genre that blended traditional comedy with biting satire on the contradictions of contemporary Italian society.

Risi, who collaborated with Ettore Scola and Ruggero Maccari on the screenplay, made Il sorpasso as a critique of Italy’s postwar so-called "economic miracle".

Releasing the movie during a period of rapid modernisation and consumerism, Risi’s aim with its themes was to highlight the emptiness behind material prosperity and the reckless pursuit of pleasure.

The two main characters - the impulsive Bruno and the reserved Roberto, played by the French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant - embody the clashing values of postwar Italy: exuberant modern life versus cautious tradition. 

The road trip is seen as a metaphor for self-discovery and societal change, with the title itself chosen to reflect what Risi saw as Italy’s rapid, sometimes reckless overtaking of tradition in pursuit of modernity, its tragic conclusion designed to symbolise the fragility of life and the risks of seeking change with too little pause for reflection.

Dino Risi directed more than 50 movies
in a career spanning half a century

Italy’s "economic miracle” was the period of unprecedented growth it experienced between about 1958 and 1963, a time of industrial expansion and rising wages, when mass consumer goods such as cars and televisions became symbols of prosperity.

Bruno’s Lancia Aurelia convertible was not just a car but a metaphor for speed, freedom, and the allure of modern Italy. It represented both the excitement of progress and the dangers of reckless living.

Il sorpasso was at first largely ignored by Italian film critics, yet became a hit with cinemagoers, who made it one of the two highest-grossing Italian-made films in Italy for the year ended June 30, 1963.

Those critics warmed to it in time, however. The country’s National Union of Film Journalists handed Gassman their coveted Nastro d’Argento award for Best Actor and the film is now generally considered an undisputed classic, mentioned in the same breath as the work of directors as revered as Michelangelo Antonioni and Luchino Visconti. 

It came to be seen as particularly significant among social commentators who see the years of the “economic miracle” in a rather less positive light. While it was a period that saw prosperity and living standards rise after the bleak aftermath of World War Two, it can also be interpreted as the start of Italy’s transformation from a traditionally agricultural and family-centred society into a shallower, individualistic one driven by consumerism.

Il sorpasso influenced many later directors in their work, among them Martin Scorsese, the brilliant American director of Sicilian descent, who cited Il sorpasso as "the model" for his 1986 hit The Color of Money, which starred Paul Newman and Tom Cruise. 

Parioli is known for its
elegant tree-lined streets

Travel tip:

Though born in Milan, Dino Risi lived in Rome, including the last 30 years of his life in an apartment in the Aldrovandi Residence in the Parioli district, one of the Italian capital’s most elegant residential areas, renowned for its leafy boulevards, refined atmosphere and cultural landmarks. Nestled between the Villa Borghese gardens and the curve of the Tiber, Parioli developed in the early 20th century as a haven for Rome’s elite. Its name derives from the Monti Parioli hills, once dotted with pear orchards, now home to stately villas, Art Nouveau palazzi, and spacious apartments. The neighbourhood, favoured by diplomats, professionals and artists, is dotted with chic cafés, gourmet restaurants and tranquil parks such as Villa Ada, one of Rome’s largest green spaces and once the Rome residence of the Italian Royal family. Parioli is also the home of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna and the Auditorium Parco della Musica, which hosts major concerts and events. As well as a number of elegant hotels, Parioli has many luxury apartments to rent, which make it popular with well-heeled visitors to the capital.

Parioli, Rome hotels from Hotels.com

The modern Strada Statale I follows the coastal
route of the ancient Via Aurelia

Travel tip:

In Il sorpasso, the road trip embarked upon by Bruno and Roberto largely follows the course of the ancient Via Aurelia, which was originally built in 241BC by consul Gaius Aurelius Cotta, with the aim of connecting Rome with the colonies along the Tyrrhenian coast, ending in Pisa but linking with the Via Aemilia Scaura, which led from Pisa to Genoa. Combined with the Via Appia, which led from Rome to Apulia, it meant the Romans had use of a continuous route from the Ligurian coast in the northwest to the port city of Brindisi in the southeast. The Roman road stretched over 1,000km, with about 700km of the Via Aurelia’s route still in use as a paved road, incorporated into the Strada Statale 1, also known as SS1 Aurelia, which runs from Rome to the French border near Ventimiglia. The adaptation of the ancient road for modern use was helped by the way it was built. The Via Aurelia, like other Roman roads at the time, was paved at a width of approximately 4.6 metres (15 feet), to allow standard size chariots to pass each other comfortably.  The Romans, ever inventive, could be said to have been the pioneers of modern service areas in that every 15 miles or so along Via Aurelia, a ‘statio’ would be constructed to provide travellers with food, shelter, stables and a means to buy horses or other travel equipment for their journey.

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More reading:

How Dino Risi saw the potential in future stars such as Sophia Loren and Alberto Sordi

Otto e mezzo - the Fellini masterpiece hailed as ‘better’ than La dolce vita

Michelangelo Antonioni - the last great of Italian cinema’s post-war golden era

Also on this day:

343: The death of Saint Nicholas of Bari

1478: The birth of courtier and diplomat Baldassare Castiglione

1586: The birth of astronomer Niccolò Zucchi

1794: The birth of opera star and Royal voice coach Luigi Lablache

1921: The birth of lawyer and composer Piero Piccione

1975: The birth of businessman Andrea Agnelli

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Valentina Cortese – actress

Vibrant performer made more than 100 films

Valentina Cortese in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1955 film
Le Amiche (The Girlfriends)

Film star Valentina Cortese was born on this day in 1923 in Milan.

She had an acting career lasting nearly 60 years and won an Academy Award nomination for her performance as an ageing, alcoholic movie star in Francois Truffaut’s Day for Night in 1973.

Cortese was born to a single mother, who sent her to live with her maternal grandparents in Turin when she was six years old.

She enrolled in the National Academy of Dramatic Arts in Rome at the age of 15 and made her screen debut in 1940. This paved the way for her first internationally acclaimed film in 1948, an Italian adaptation of Les Miserables with Gino Cervi and Marcello Mastroianni, in which she played the roles of both Fantine and Cosette.

She then appeared in the British film The Glass Mountain in 1949 and also appeared in many American films of the period, while continuing to work in Europe with directors such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini and Francois Truffaut.

After signing a contract with 20th Century Fox, Cortese starred in Malaya with Spencer Tracey and James Stewart and The House on Telegraph Hill with Richard Basehart and William Lundigan.

With the American actor James Stewart on the set of
Richard Thorpe's 1949 war drama Malaya

Cortese married her co-star, Richard Basehart, in 1951 and had one son with him, who became the actor Jackie Basehart.

The couple divorced in 1960 and Cortese never remarried.  Jackie died in Milan in 2015, four years before her own death.

She also enjoyed success on the stage, appearing in plays by Chekhov, Shakespeare, Brecht and Pirandello, frequently starring at Milan’s Piccolo Teatro.

Her final American film was When Time Ran Out in 1980, but she continued to make films in Italy until the 1990s. Having appeared in more than 100 films and TV shows, her final appearance was when she played the role of a Mother Superior in Franco Zeffirelli’s film, Sparrow, in 1993.

Valentina Cortese died in 2019 in Milan at the age of 96.

Milan's famous Gothic cathedral at the heart of
Lombardy's principal city

Travel tip:

Milan, where Valentina Cortese was born and died, is the capital city of the northern region of Lombardy. A leading city in the fields of art, entertainment, fashion and finance, Milan has a wealth of theatres with a long tradition of staging a variety of entertainment. In north west Milan, Teatro Dal Verme in San Giovanni sul Muro opened in 1872, the Teatro dell’Arte in Viale Alemagna was redesigned in 1960 and Teatro Litta next to Palazzo Litta in Corso Magenta is believed to be the oldest theatre in the city. The famous opera house, La Scala, inaugurated in 1778, has a fascinating museum that displays costumes and memorabilia from the history of the theatre. The entrance is in Largo Ghiringhelli, just off Piazza Scala. It is open every day except the Italian Bank Holidays and a few days in December. Opening hours are from 9.00 to 12.30 and 1.30 to 5.30 pm.

The Piccolo Teatro Grassi in Milan,
founded in 1947

Travel tip:

The Piccolo Teatro in Milan, where Valentina Cortese regularly appeared, was founded in 1947 in Via Rivoli in north west Milan by theatre impresario Paolo Grassi and director Giorgio Strehler. The first public theatre in Italy, it aimed to be an arts theatre for everyone and continues to stage quality productions for the broadest possible audience to this day.

Also on this day:

1803: The birth of book thief Guglielmo Libri 

1926: The birth of singer Claudio Villa

1958: The birth of shoe designer Cesare Paciotti

Capodanno in Italy


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