Silvana Mangano is one of Italy's most memorable leading ladies. She was born in Rome on April 21, 1930, and grew up amid conditions of poverty during World War II. She persevered through those tough times, training as a dancer. Then in 1946, she won the Miss Rome beauty pageant, a victory that gave her the push she needed to discover her destiny. Just three years later, she landed a role in one of the most influential films of Italian cinema, "Riso Amaro" (Bitter Rice) by Giuseppe De Santis. The film was one of the first of the Neorealist film movement and received an Academy Award nomination in 1950. Produced by Mangano's husband, the prolific filmmaker Dino De Laurentiis , "Riso Amaro" is a multi-layered story that called on Mangano's talent and sex appeal to portray a peasant girl who could manipulate just about anyone with her beauty. The story follows three main characters through the rice-planting season in northern Italy during World W...
100+ YEARS OF THE GREAT ITALIAN MOVIEMAKERS