Italian goddess Virna Lisi was merely one of a plethora of European movie beauties who proved over the course of their long careers, that they were capable of more than just visual performances. Born in 1936 as Virna Pieralisi, she began her film career as a teenager in 1953. Cast more for her looks than talent at the onset, her early pictures included La donna del giorno (1957), Les bonnes causes (1963) (aka “Don’t Tempt the Devil”) and the Italian-made spectacle, Romolo e Remo (1961). The pert and sexy star also made a decorative dent in Hollywood comedy as a tempting blue-eyed blonde starring opposite Jack Lemmon in How to Murder Your Wife (1965), and appearing with Tony Curtis in Not with My Wife, You Don’t! (1966). Confined to the same type of glamour roles here, she returned to Europe within a couple of years but hardly fared better in such mediocre movies as Arabella (1967). In later decades, however, a career renaissance occurred for Virna. She began to be perceived as more than just a tasty dish, giving a wide variety of mature, award-winning performances. It all culminated in the role of a lifetime with the film, La Reine Margot (1994), in which she played a marvelously malevolent “Caterina de’ Medici” and captured both the César and Cannes Film Festival awards, not to mention the Italian Silver Ribbon award. She has since reigned supreme as a character lead and support player.
