The Valeria
Golino pages
(Valeria was born on Oct. 22 1966 in
Naples, Italy )
(She
is the second child of a famous Italian scholar and a young
Greek painter. Her brother is a musician and their uncle Enzo
Golino is a famous journalist. Her grand-father owned Hotel
"Bella Napoli" where her family lived. When her parents parted
she lived 3 years in Athens with the mother and other 3 in
Neaples with the father; her grand-father had sold the hotel.
Her dream was to become a heart specialist but after 1.st
year of high school she,at age 16, went to live in her uncle's
home in Rome where she worked as a model for advertisements,
especially for underwear thanks to her beatiful, flat belly.
Seems like her first steps in model carrier began in Athens!
So she has left her studies, but her father had given her
the books of Marcel Proust to read. Soon she began to move
continously in her friends' homes, especially in the popular
distric of Trastevere in Rome. She feels herself to be a ragged
Gipsy but has a preference for Armani's clothes and often
wears Dolce & Gabbana's ones. She likes Jazz music and Eastern
European movies. )
.She is 170
cm. tall, weighs 50 kg. and her measurements are 80-60-90.
Her Italian agency is: Carol Levi e Company V. Carducci 10
Roma 00187 RM Italy. She has no experiences in theatre, and
hadn't studied performing arts at all. "The Man I Love" in
Hot Shots! is her only experience in singing.... So Valeria
left after the 1.st year of high school (in Italy high school
is not compulsory) working as a model in Rome (maybe in Milan
too). With the help of relatives she met Director Lina Wertmüller
at a party and was recruited for her first movie "Scherzo
del destino in agguato dietro l'angolo come un brigante di
strada", aka "Lo scherzo". In English the title is "A Joke
of Destiny, Lying in Wait Around the Corner Like a Bandit"
aka "Joke of Destiny": it's 1983. Wertmüller is famous for
her very long titles and for her glasses. The cast is all-Italian,
the most famous player is Ugo Tognazzi, the movie takes place
in Rome and Valeria plays Tognazzi daughter, Adalgisa De Andreiis.
The next year Valeria began to work with Hollywood stars.
Ben Gazzara has the leading role in "Figlio mio infinitamente
caro..." ("My Dearest Son") that Director Valentino Orsini
make in his town, Pisa. Valeria plays Francesca, the fianceé
of Gazzara's son. The Internet Movie Data Base has revealed
to me that the US production, "Blind Date" aka "Deadly Seduction"
by Nico Mastorakis with Kristie Alley: Valeria is a girl in
bikini. In 1985 there are another two movies. One is by Filippo
Ottoni "Asilo di Polizia" (in English "Detective School Dropouts"
aka "Dumb Dicks" aka "Private Detectives"): David Landsberg
and Lorin Dreyfuss are two US detective get involved in the
war between two Italian criminal families: the one of Caterina
(Valeria's role) the other of her boy-friend: the Italian
place are Rome, Pisa and Venice. Not very surprisingly, this
movie is releasedin the Italian theaters only in 1986, with
the poster crying it is the movie that has discovered Valeria.
The other movie in 1985 is a low-budget one by Peter Del Monte
Now the tale: in the home of actress Nadia Cassini Valeria
meets Photographer Roberto Granata (his pictorial of a teen-ager
Nastassia Kinski is history): she is in a cast after an awful
car accident. A month after they meet again and Granata takes
some black & white pictures. Some months after Director Francesco
"Citto" Maselli,Secretary of Italian Filmakers' Union see
these shots and chooses Valeria for his next movie "Storia
d'amore". In this movie Valeria has the leading role of Bruna
Assecondati, a poor cleaning lady in Rome with two lovers.
In 1986 at Venice Cinema Festival the movie wins the Jury
Special Prix, Valeria the Best Actress Prize: she is 20 and
does not have an appropriate and expensive dress, according
to the criticians (Italian criticians are the worst plague
for Italian cinema). Director Giuliano Montaldo is wacthing
at the cerimony on TV and casts Valeria in his next film.
In the same 1986 Valeria had played in a French-Italian co-production:
"Last Summer in Tangiers" by Alexander Arcady. The place is
Tangiers in 1956, in the very previous day before Morocco
indipendancy: in the prologue (10 years before) a girl, Claudia
Marchetti, survives to the slaughter of her family. So Claudia,
played by Valeria, comes back for revenge and try to let fall
in love with herself her enemy's son (playedby Vincent Lindon).
Valeria begins to gain the first covers: the news magazine
"l'Espresso" (where her uncle Enzo Golino is vice-editor)
put her on cover for the Venice Cinema Festival. Granata and
Valeria go to Sardinia for a nude pictorial and the photo
with the red shirt is on the cover of October 1986 issue of
"Photo Italia", and maybe of other editions of the photography
monthly rewiew. In October 1987 the same photo is on the cover
of "Playmen" (you guessed it, it is like "Playboy"). The news
magazine Epoca takes the same photo for cover but "corrects"
the red shirt to cover the pubic hair. In 1987 Montaldo makes
"Gli occhiali d'oro" (in English "Gold Rimmed Glasses", in
French "Les lunettes d'or") with Philippe Noiret (dr. Fatigati,
an homosexual M.D. with gold rimmed glasses), Rupert Everett
(David, a Hebrew student) and Valeria (Hebrew Nora Treves,
David's girl-friend) The place is Ferrara in 1938, while the
Fascist government makes laws against the Hebrews. The scenario
is from the omonimous novel by Writer Giorgio Bassani, from
the collection "Cinque storie ferraresi" but Valeria's role
isn't from the original work. She has a new boy-friend, an
Puerto Rico-born actor and so follow him to Los Angeles, not
taking care too much of her carrier. Actor Pee Wee Herman
recruits her for his new film: he plays a farmer that joins
a circus where there is an Italian acrobat, Gina Piccopupula
(Valeria); in the cast there is Kris Kristoferson too. There
is a more than 3 minute-lasting kiss betwen Pee Wee and Valeria,
reduced in the final cut. The movie is not a block-buster.
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(The producers of "Rain Man" are looking for a new
face to join to Hoffman and Cruise (at the beginning Charlie's
role was for Robert De Niro): she must be not too expensive
and not too tall (Hoffman and Cruise are very expensive
but not very tall). Valeria is chosen: her role was of a
Mexican but Charlie's business is about cars and so it is
easy to make some change: Charlie becomes an importer of
Italian fashion cars and his girl-friend is an Italian,
Susanna. In this way, Valeria has played two Italian roles
but her Hollywood carrier has just begun. In the universitary
town of Pavia, Italy Director Margarethe Von Trotta makes
an Italian-French-German co-production: "Paura e amore":
Von Trotta and Writer Dacia Maraini have freely adapted
a Russian Writer Cechov's novel, "Three Sisters" in an feminist
scenario. Valeria is Sandra, the youngest of the Parini
Sister (there is a wimpy brother too, played by Sergio Castellitto).
Sandra is an enviroment-concerned medicine student. The
other two sister are played by Fanny Ardant and by Greta
Scacchi (do you remember her in "Coca Cola Kid" by Dusan
Makavejev with Eric Roberts?). Italian TV Comic Paolo Hendel
appears in a near-as-himself role (Greta Scacchi's husband).
Laura Obici, the fianceé of a friend of mine appears too
in this movie, but as an extra! Giorgia Lepore dubbed Valeria's
voice in Italian edition. And this is all for 1988. In 1989
there are two European co-productions, two costume dramas.
The first is "Acque di primavera" by Polish-born Director
Jerzy Skolimowski from a novel of Russian Writer Ivan Turgeniev:
other players are Timothy Hutton, Nastassia Kinski and William
Forsythe. In the turn of few days the Russian Nobleman Dimitri
Sanin falls in love with two women, the Italian Giulia Rosselli
(Valeria) and the Russian Maria (Nastassia Kinski) and lost
them two. The place is Mainz, Germany, in the last century.
Occurring the election of Italian Members of European Parliament
Valeria supports the "Verdi Arcobaleno per l'Europa", a
Green list that takes 2 seats and soon merges with the other
Green party (3 seats). The other costume drama is "La puttana
del re" by Axel Corti: please note that Vittorio Amedeo
II, Duke of Savoy and Pedmond was from December 24th, 1713
to Agust 2nd, 1718 King of Sicily and only in 1720 became
King of Sardinia. It seems that Timothy Dalton has seriously
considered to leave his wife and marry Valeria.... In 1990
there are two movies: the anthology "Tracce di vita amorosa"
by Peter Del Monte (she plays a girl that meets the man
has been implanted in the heart of her boy-friend) and the
Sean Penn's debut as director "Indian Runner". Do you know
that Sean Penn's idea to make this movie comes back when
he listened to "Highway Patrolman" by Springsteen and was
the boy-friend of Bruce's sisters? Well, for the first time
("Blind Date" in 1984) Valeria plays not an Italian role
but a Mexican one.... In 1991 there are "Hot Shots!" and
"The Year of the Gun": in the first movie she plays not
an Italian role but as acrobat and horsewoman in the first
scene she remember many Italians that Hollywood recruited
for these roles. )
(In 1992 she makes her
last Italian movie by an world-known director: "Puerto Escondido"
by Gabriele Salvatores, with Diego Abatantuono and Claudio
Bisio. Abatantuono and Bisio play often in Salvatores's
movies: maybe you have seen them in "Mediterraneo" (Best
Foreign Film Academy Award) or in "Nirvana" (with Christopher
Lambert, the first serious Italian sci-fi movie). Valeria
plays Anita: Anita and her boy-friend (Bisio) are two Italians
living in Mexico by expedients when comes another Italian
fugitive (Abatantuomo). In this movie there are a lot of
cultivated drugs like marijuana and peyote: it seems that
even the peyote Abatantuono eats once in the fiction was
real peyote. In a scene of a robbery Valeria wears a blonde
wig. During the making of the movie in Mexico Fabrizio Bentivoglio
came to meet Valeria (well, I don't know the exact day they
had become a couple) and so played a cameo role: a young
man screaming at the bus departure. It was the first time
that Valeria and Bentivoglio worked in the same movie. Well
for to-day it's all about her carrier. Note that Valeria's
Italian inflexion made the filmakers choose Julia Roberts
for "Pretty Woman" (at that time it was not a Disney tale,
but a drama where Richard Geere leaved the hooker back in
the street) and "Flatliners" and not her.)
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