An Italian screen diva whose life, from her love affairs with American soldiers during the war, could make a movie, died at the age of 90. She made more than 80 films, series, and her last performance was last Christmas.
Two famous lovers, three children, four husbands, 83 films and television films, numerous programs as an entertainer, 68 years of career and almost 91 years of age (she would have turned 91 in March), this is how Sandra Milo’s life could be summarized, popular actress who just died in Rome. Another summary would simply say that she was sensual, fun, kind and always well-disposed. And a great teller of anecdotes, some of which were true.
About her childhood during the war, she told how her mother, to alleviate hunger, went with other women into a wheat field that the Germans had planted with mines. Her hunger weighed more than her fear of death. From his early adolescence, how he flirted with the American soldiers, and how he distracted one while his mother and a neighbor stole his motorcycle. At the age of 15 she married a count twice her age, a marriage soon annulled by the Sacra Rota. Almost immediately she settled in Rome, she became a model and at 22 she made her film debut in a comedy with Alberto Sordi, “Lo scapolo” (here it was called “The Bachelor”). She was adding comedies, dramas, adventure and police films in France and Italy, along with Vittorio De Sica, Totó, Bourvil, Fernandel, and the then young Lino Ventura, Mastroianni, Delon, Belmondo, Gassman, the Uruguayan George Hilton, Enrico Maria Salerno and other greats, she shone in “General Della Rovere”, “Adua and her friends”, she failed with “Vanina Vanini”, her first absolute leading role, she was a mother for the first time and At 30 he met Federico Fellini. “I fell in love right away, he didn’t.”
“We never sleep together, we always love each other on some Cinecittá set,” counted. He was married to Giulietta Masina, she to a Greek producer, and the four of them were friends. Giulietta found out and was tolerant. The other broke up badly and even took her daughter away from her. Fellini never gave her a promise of love, but he gave her her two most famous roles: Mastroianni’s lover in “8 and a half”, and the professional who advises Masina in “Giulietta de los spirits”.
Then came “The Visit” (here renamed, with little discretion, “La bella culandrona”), “The Woman is a Wonderful Thing”, “How They Taught Me to Love”, the theater seasons and TV movies began, she added a third husband and two more children, and became interested in socialism. She was so interested that she became the lover of Bettino Craxi, historic secretary of the Italian Socialist Party. “It was a clandestine love of two years. We left, for fear that the family would find out.”
Then, without leaving the cinema, she established herself as host of various programs, including one for children, very successful, she incorporated grandmother characters, always mischievous, she found a fourth husband, younger than her, as appropriate, she collaborated with several debut directors, At 87 she marched in demonstrations in favor of artists affected by Covid, in 2022 she received the David Di Donatello for Lifetime Achievement, and last Christmas she played a woman with Alzheimer’s who dreams of having a romance, in the series “Gigoló per case”, with Christian De Sica. That was her last job.
“For the Church I am a sinner, for the laws I am half condemnable; However, God has granted me a miracle.”, she often declared, and what she said had some truth: her daughter Azurra, blue, was born seven months weighing one kilo, they left her for dead as soon as she was born, but a nun took her from the doctor and gave her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for a long time. time, while praying for the intercession of Mother Maria Pia Mastena from heaven. The girl revived, and in 2005 she was in the front row at Sister Mastena’s beatification ceremony. Sandra Milo was in the back row.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
