Neapolitan starred with Hoffman and Cruise in Rain Man
Valeria Golino has won multiple awards for films made for the Italian market |
Golino was cast as the girlfriend of Tom Cruise’s character,
Charlie Babbitt, in Barry Levinson’s comedy, in which Babbitt’s estranged
father dies and leaves most of his multi-million dollar estate to another son,
an autistic savant named Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) whose existence Charlie knew
nothing about.
The 1988 movie won four Oscars and grossed more than $350
dollars. Although Golino was not nominated for her performance in Rain Man, she
has won a string of other awards over a career so far spanning almost 35 years.
She is one of only three stars to win Best Actress at the
Venice Film Festival on two occasions, for the 1986 drama Storia d’amore (“A
Tale of Love”), directed by Francesco Maselli, and for Giuseppe M Gaudino’s
2015 drama Per amor vostro (“For Your Love”).
Golino was close to being selected to star opposite Richard
Gere in another massive US hit, Pretty Woman, making it to the final audition
stage for the 1990 romantic comedy but eventually losing out to Julia Roberts.
In the same year, Roberts also pipped her to the lead female
role in the science-fiction horror film Flatliners.
Golina has been acting for the big screen since making her debut in 1983 |
Back home in Italy, she was cast in meatier, dramatic roles,
bringing her great respect. The winner of several Nastro d’Argento awards from
Italian film journalists, she landed her first David di Donatello for Best
Actress for La guerra di Mario (“Mario’s War”), Antonio Capuano’s film about
the relationship between a mother, played by Golino, and her rebellious adopted
son, a boy taken away from an abusive real mother.
Mario’s War also won her an Italian Golden Globe. Her second David di Donatello was for Best
Supporting Actress in Paolo Virzi’s 2013 film Il capitale umano (“Human Capital”).
Golino has revealed a talent for directing, too. Her first
short film, Armandino e il Madre, for which she also wrote the script, received
a favourable reaction and her first feature film as director, Miele (“Honey”),
was screened at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and won a commendation.
Miele, the story of a woman who works with an Italian
hospital doctor in the illegal facilitating of assisted suicides, earned her a
Nastro d’Argento as Best New Director as well as an Italian Golden Globe for
Best First Feature.
Valeria Golino receives her award at the 2015 Venice Film Festival |
Although her mother instilled in her a love of the cinema,
she had no great ambition to act as she grew up. In fact, after undergoing surgery to correct
a curvature of the spine, she set her sights on the medical profession,
dreaming of becoming a cardiologist.
For one reason or another, the opportunity to pursue a
career in medicine never came about. She
took some modelling assignments, which she found unfulfilling. Life changed for her at 17 years old when her
uncle, the L’Espresso journalist Enzo Golino, recommended her to Lina
Wertmüller, a film director whom he knew socially, for a part in her upcoming
movie, Scherzo del destino (“A Joke of Destiny”), alongside the renowned
Commedia all’italiana actor, Ugo Tognazzi.
Despite being hospitalised for five months after a car crash
disturbed the metal rod implanted in her back to correct the weakness in her
spine, her acting career took off at the age of 20 after she played a
life-loving cleaning lady in Maselli’s Storia d’amore.
Although she tries to keep her private life out of the
public eye, Golino has been a regular in Italian gossip magazines following a
series of relationships with other well-known figures in the movie business,
the most recent with Riccardo Scamarcio, an actor and director 14 years her
junior whom she was with for 10 years. Nowadays, she largely lives in Rome.
From the age of five years, Golino’s Italian home was in
Sorrento, the popular resort town that occupies a cliff-top position
overlooking the Bay of Naples, about 48km (30 miles) along the coast from the
city of Naples, heading south. The
journey takes about an hour using the Circumvesuviana railway or hydrofoil
across the bay, but considerably longer by road because of the almost constant
traffic. Sorrento, which has Greek
origins but was developed by the Romans, is a lively place to stay but with
much charm and stunning views from numerous vantage points.
Pictures of Piazza del Plebiscito accompanied the opening credits for Marriage, Italian Style |
Naples has a connection with the film industry going back to
the early years of the 20th century, when movie makers had already
seen its potential for offering a spectacular or atmospheric backdrop. In later years, Roberto Rossellini, Eduardo
de Filippo, Vittorio de Sica and Francesco Rosi set many of their great films
in the city. The actress Sophia Loren,
whose Neapolitan movies included Marriage, Italian Style and Yesterday, Today
and Tomorrow, in both of which she co-starred with Marcello Mastroianni, was
born in Rome but grew up in Naples and nearby Pozzuoli and regards herself as a
Neapolitan.
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