Isa Miranda
Encyclopedia
Isa Miranda was an Italian
Italian people
The Italian people are an ethnic group that share a common Italian culture, ancestry and speak the Italian language as a mother tongue. Within Italy, Italians are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence , and are distinguished from people...

 actress with an international film career.

A native of Bergamo
Bergamo
Bergamo is a town and comune in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to over 120,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...

, Isa Miranda worked as a typist whilst attending the drama academy in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 and training as a stage actress. She went on to play bit parts in Italian films in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. Success came with Max Ophüls
Max Ophüls
Maximillian Oppenheimer — known as Max Ophüls — was an influential German-born film director who worked in Germany , France , the United States , and France again...

' film La Signora di tutti (Everybody's Woman) (1934) in which she played Gaby Doriot, a famous film star and fascinating adventuress with whom men cannot help falling in love. Having brought several of them to their ruin, she slits her wrists. This was perhaps Miranda's finest screen performance and it brought in its wake several film offers and a Hollywood contract with Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

. There, billed as the "Italian Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...

", she played several femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...

roles in such films as Hotel Imperial (1939) and Adventure in Diamonds
Adventure in Diamonds
Adventure in Diamonds is a 1940 American crime film directed by George Fitzmaurice and starring George Brent, Isa Miranda, John Loder and Nigel Bruce...

(1940).

She returned to Italy soon after the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 and continued to act on the stage and to make films. In 1949, she starred in René Clément's The Walls of Malapaga
The Walls of Malapaga
The Walls of Malapaga ), is a 1949 Franco-Italian film co-production made by Francinex and Italia Produzione. It was directed by René Clément and produced by Alfredo Guarini from a screenplay by Cesare Zavattini, Suso Cecchi d'Amico and Alfredo Guarini adapted by Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost...

, which won an Academy Award
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

 for the most outstanding foreign language film of 1950, and for Miranda, the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...

at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...

. Another success of that period was La Ronde
La Ronde (1950 film)
La Ronde is a 1950 film directed by Max Ophüls and based on Arthur Schnitzler's 1897 play of the same name. The title means "the round-dance".The film was nominated for two Academy Awards; for Best Writing and Best Art Direction...

(1950), also directed by Ophüls.

Her career took her to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, where she frequently appeared in TV films, including The Avengers
The Avengers (TV series)
The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series set in the 1960s Britain. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed . Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants...

. Other notable film appearances include Siamo donne
Siamo donne
We, the Women is a 1953 Italian pormanteau film divided into five segments and directed by five different directors. Four of these segments focus upon alleged events in the private lives of the film actresses Alida Valli, Ingrid Bergman, Isa Miranda, and Anna Magnani...

(1953), a portmanteau film
Anthology film
An anthology film is a feature film consisting of several different short films, often tied together by only a single theme, premise, or brief interlocking event . Sometimes each one is directed by a different director...

where Miranda shares the screen with three other screen legends, Anna Magnani
Anna Magnani
Anna Magnani was an Italian stage and film actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, along with four other international awards, for her portrayal of a Sicilian widow in The Rose Tattoo....

, Alida Valli
Alida Valli
Alida Valli , sometimes simply credited as Valli, was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films, including Mario Soldati's Piccolo mondo antico, Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case, Carol Reed's The Third Man, Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Grido, Luchino Visconti's Senso, Bernardo...

 and Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...

, Summertime (1955), Gli Sbandati
The Abandoned (1955 film)
Abandoned. The Runaways or The Abandoned was the United States title for the 1955 Italian film Gli Sbandati, set during the aftermath of the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943 during World War II .-Cast:*Lucia Bosé - Lucia...

(1955), La Noia (The Empty Canvas
The Empty Canvas
The Empty Canvas is an Italian drama film directed by Damiano Damiani. The screenplay by Damiani, Tonino Guerra, and Ugo Liberatore is based on the best-selling novel La Noia by Alberto Moravia.-Synopsis:...

, 1963), The Yellow Rolls-Royce
The Yellow Rolls-Royce
-External links:, a promotional short subject for the film...

(1964), The Shoes of the Fisherman
The Shoes of the Fisherman
The Shoes of the Fisherman is a 1963 novel by the Australian author Morris West, as well as a 1968 film based on the novel.The book reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for adult fiction on 30 June 1963, and became the #1 bestselling novel in the United States for that year, according...

(1968) and Liliana Cavani
Liliana Cavani
Liliana Cavani is an Italian film director and screenwriter. She belongs to a generation of Italian filmmakers that came into prominence in the 1970s and includes Bernardo Bertolucci, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Marco Bellochio. Cavani became internationally known after the success of her 1974 feature...

's Il portiere di notte (The Night Porter
The Night Porter
The Night Porter is a controversial 1974 film by Italian director Liliana Cavani, starring Dirk Bogarde and Charlotte Rampling.- Synopsis :...

, 1974).

Miranda was married to the Italian director and producer Alfredo Guarini until his death in 1981.

She died in Rome in 1982.

Selected filmography

  • Adventure in Diamonds
    Adventure in Diamonds
    Adventure in Diamonds is a 1940 American crime film directed by George Fitzmaurice and starring George Brent, Isa Miranda, John Loder and Nigel Bruce...

    (1940)
  • Le Secret d'Hélène Marimon
    Le Secret d'Hélène Marimon
    Le Secret d'Hélène Marimon , is a French drama film from 1954, directed by Henri Calef, written by Henri Calef, starring Isa Miranda and Louis de Funès. The scenario was based on the novel of J. B...

    (1954)
  • Un monde nouveau
    Un monde nouveau
    Un monde nouveau is a 1966 French-Italian drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica. Most notably it featured Sean Connery as himself.-Cast:* Christine Delaroche - Anne* Nino Castelnuovo - Carlo* Madeleine Robinson - Wealthy woman...

    (1965)
  • Marta
    Marta (film)
    Marta is a 1971 Spanish thriller film directed by José Antonio Nieves Conde. The film was selected as the Spanish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 44th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.-Cast:* Marisa Mell as Marta & Pilar...

    (1971)
  • Lo chiameremo Andrea
    Lo chiameremo Andrea
    Lo chiameremo Andrea is a 1972 Italian comedy film directed by Vittorio De Sica.-Cast:* Nino Manfredi - Paolo Antonazzi* Mariangela Melato - Maria Antonazzi* Anna Maria Aragona - Teacher...

    (1972)

External links

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