Acting
Laura Betti
Laura Betti (née Trombetti; 1 May 1927 – 31 July 2004) was an Italian actress known particularly for her work with directors Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci. She had a long friendship with Pasolini and made a documentary about him in 2001.
Betti became famous for portraying bizarre, grotesque, eccentric, unstable or maniacal roles, like Regina in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900, Anna the medium in Twitch of the Death Nerve, Giovanna la pazza in Woman Buried Alive, hysterical Rita Zigai in Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina, Therese in Private Vices, Public Virtues, Emilia the servant in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema for which she won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress, and Mildred the protagonist's wife in Mario Bava's Hatchet for the Honeymoon.
Born Laura Trombetti in Casalecchio di Reno, near Bologna, she grew up to be interested in singing. She first worked professionally in the arts as a jazz singer and moved to Rome.
Betti made her film debut in Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960). In 1963, she became a close friend of the poet and movie director Pier Paolo Pasolini. Under his direction, she proved a wonderful talent and played in seven of his films, including La ricotta (1963), Teorema (Theorem, 1968), his 1972 version of The Canterbury Tales, in which she played the Wife of Bath; and his controversial Salo (1975) ("120 Days of Sodom").
In 1976, Betti portrayed Regina, a cruel and eroto-maniacal fascist in Bernardo Bertolucci's Novecento (1900). She also played Miss Blandish in his Last Tango in Paris (1972), though her single scene was deleted.
In 1973 she dubbed the voice of the Devil for the Italian version of William Friedkin's The Exorcist.
From the 1960s, Betti dedicated much of her time to literature and politics. She became the muse for a number of leading political and literary figures in Italy and came to personify the revolutionary and Marxist era of 1970s Italy.
In 2001, she made a documentary about Pasolini, Pier Paolo Pasolini e la ragione di un sogno. She also donated her papers related to their long friendship along with more than 1000 volumes and many documents connected to Pasolini to the archives of the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, thus creating the Centro Studi Archivio Pier Paolo Pasolini. This Centro, strongly wanted by Betti, owns also thousands of photograph and all the works of Pasolini: poetry, literature, cinema and journalism. After her death in 2004 her brother Sergio Trombetti has donated all the personal documents of her career to the Centro that has absorbed them under the name Fondo Laura Betti.
Source: Article "Laura Betti" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Filmography
Browse movies and TV shows featuring Laura Betti
La Dolce Vita
Episodic journey of journalist Marcello who struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure o...
The Word
A document is discovered that appears to be an ancient eyewitness account of the life of Jesus Christ. A public...
The Cousin
Italian coming of age story about two cousins, Enzo and Agata, told in three stages.
1900
The epic tale of a class struggle in twentieth century Italy, as seen through the eyes of two childhood friends...
Fat Girl
Anaïs is twelve and bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. She watches her older sister, Elena, whom s...
The Canterbury Tales
Glimpses of Chaucer penning his famous work are sprinkled through this re-enactment of several of his stories.
The Charterhouse of Parma
Stendhal's epic tale of a young French officer in the Napoleonic wars, and his aunt - a duchess of legendary be...
Theorem
A wealthy Italian household is turned upside down when a handsome stranger arrives, seduces every family member...
Cinecittà Cinecittà
The Witches
Five short stories loosely dealing with the roles of women in society. A superstar actress travels to a mountai...
Sonny and Jed
As thoroughly unlikeable a robber as ever walked the West, Joe nonetheless robs from the rich and gives to the...
A Bay of Blood
An elderly heiress is killed by her husband who wants control of her fortunes. What ensues is an all-out murder...
The Beaches of Agnès
Filmmaking icon Agnès Varda, the award-winning director regarded by many as the grandmother of the French new w...
Private Vices, Public Virtues
The setting is a Central European kingdom, near the turn of the century. Bored by his very proper wife, the you...
Slap the Monster on Page One
Days before the general election, after a girl from a rich family is murdered in an attempted rape, the editor-...
Oedipus Rex
In pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son - and the scene mo...
The Wings of the Dove
An Italian adaptation of Henry James's 1902 novel of the same name. The series is a dramatic interpretation set...
Allonsanfan
After the 1815 Restoration, an aging revolutionary finds himself reluctantly involved in an attempted insurrect...
With Closed Eyes
In the Tuscan countryside at the end of the 19th century, Pietro, the shy son of a tyrannical landowner, falls...
Ro.Go.Pa.G.
Four short films by four different directors dealing with the principles of modern life.
Jane B. by Agnès V.
The interests, obsessions, and fantasies of two singular artists converge in this inspired collaboration betwee...
The Protagonists
An Italian movie crew goes to London to make a documentary about a murder case that took place a few years befo...
That Night of Varennes
During the French Revolution, a surprising company shares a coach, trying to catch up something - the time itse...
Renzo e Lucia
Loose adaptation of Italy's national epic, Alessandro Manzoni's “The Betrothed”. In war-torn 17th century Italy...
The Gang
In 1945, as World War Two comes to a close, five small time crooks unite to form a gang. After several bold rob...
Escape by Night
In Nazi-occupied Rome, a beautiful bootlegger, to the chagrin of her lover, gives sanctuary to three escaped PO...
In the Name of the Father
In 1958 Angelo, a rich and spoiled boy, enters a religious school, where students are tired of its vice-rector,...
Whoever Says the Truth Shall Die
Philo Bregstein tells us this film looks at Pasolini's life and art to explain why he died. The film traces Pas...
Lovers and Liars
An American actress on vacation in Italy falls for her friend's married Italian lover.
Art of Love
Young student Claudine has a dream in which the Roman student Cornelius, fascinated by the beautiful wife of th...
The Great Pumpkin
An epileptic 12-year-old girl, Pippi, is hospitalized in the psychiatric ward instead of the neurological ward,...
Blame it on Paradise
A former convict discovers that his son has been adopted by a couple living on the mountains and tries to estab...
Caprice Italian Style
The film consists of six short stories created by different directors, but all the stories share one thing: a w...
Abicinema
A Man Called Sledge
James Garner is Luther Sledge, the leader of a pack of rebels who are planning to steal a stash of gold. But af...