For many she is the most beautiful actress in the world: Monica Bellucci. She will be 60 years old on September 30th.
Everyone looks. The old, the young. The women, the men. Even the children watch her go. Enter Monica Bellucci. She has been well aware of the sensation she causes for decades. She’s gotten used to it now, but it wasn’t always like that.
At home in San Giustino on the Tiber, a small town in Umbria where she was born, she found the attention of others a burden. When her father once asked her why she didn’t want to go into town with the others, she replied: “When I go into the piazza, everyone looks at me. The men look at me. The women look at me. All the children out the school. I’m ashamed.”
She was 13 then. Today, Monica Bellucci is considered one of the most exciting actresses in the world. She will be 60 years old on September 30th.
From modeling to acting
It’s not just her timeless Mediterranean beauty that makes her so striking, but also the casualness with which she handles it. This means that the reflection of the shine also falls on those around you and everyone feels good. Bellucci has never revealed whether this sovereignty is innate or trained.
The Italian has known how effective staging works for over four decades. She has been modeling since she was 16, and by the time she was 20 she was already attending shows in Paris and Milan. She gave up her studies at the University of Perugia – first philosophy, literature, Latin and Greek, then law – after a few semesters in favor of a career as a supermodel.
She was on the cover of “Vogue” and “Elle” magazines, worked primarily with the legendary photographer Oliviero Toscani (82) and modeled for Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, L’Oréal, Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Versace, Nina Ricci and other luxury labels. She was living in New York with over a million dollars in her account – when she came to film: a director had seen her photo in a magazine and hired her for his mini-series “Vita coi figli” on Italian TV in 1990. She made another film in the same year.
The breakthrough in Hollywood
Then came US director Francis Ford Coppola (85), who signed her for a supporting role in his lavish horror film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”. Monica Bellucci played a sensual bloodsucker – her international breakthrough. Only then did she take acting lessons.
Bellucci has appeared in over 75 Italian, French and American films and TV productions. Their partners were often illustrious stars such as Bruce Willis, Pierce Brosnan, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Keanu Reeves, Jim Caviezel, Matt Damon, Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Craig and Robert De Niro.
In the 007 episode “Spectre” (2015) she was the oldest Bond girl to date at 50. The current horror comedy “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is her latest film and has been in cinemas since the beginning of September.
Monica Bellucci and the men
Her relationship with men is just as constant as her work as an actress. “I’ve pretty much always been in a relationship since my first boyfriend at 14,” she told Vanity Fair magazine. From 1990 to 1991 she was married to the photographer Claudio Carlos Basso (65). This was followed by a liaison lasting several years with the Italian actor Nicola Farron (60).
In 1995 she met her French colleague Vincent Cassel (57) while filming “Lies of Love” and an intense work and love relationship developed with joint films such as “Doberman”, “Pact of the Wolves”, “Irreversible” and “Agents Secrets – In the Crosshairs of Death”. She was married to Cassel from 1999 to 2013, and the two have daughters Deva (20) and Léonie (14).
Her next love was the French sculptor Nicolas Lefebvre (2017-2019), who was 18 years her junior. Her current life partner is the American director Tim Burton (66), who also filmed “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” with her.
How God created them
Monica Bellucci had long been an international film star when she once again caused a stir with two photo shoots a few years ago. In 2001, she posed naked with caviar on her breasts on the cover of the Desire issue of Esquire, and in 2010, at the age of 45, she was photographed heavily pregnant for the cover of Vanity Fair.
The older daughter Deva Cassel has now followed in her mother’s footsteps. She has already appeared on the cover of Vogue and made her advertising debut for Dolce & Gabbana. The mother’s success should be incentive enough. Bellucci has become a rich woman. The US magazine Forbes estimates her fortune at $45 million. She also owns houses in Rome, Lisbon and on a Greek island. Although she spent years in Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon, she says: “I’m Italian through and through. Everything about me is Italian.”
The actress also copes with her age confidently. “I think that the gradual loss of the biological beauty of youth offers us the opportunity to look at life from a different perspective. It’s about the privilege of experience and maturity,” she told Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
This in turn shows that beauty and spirit sometimes enter into a remarkable relationship – as with Monica Bellucci: She is not only a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars every year, but also a knight of the French Legion of Honor and, since 2006, a knight of the French Order of Arts and Letters.
Source: Stern
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.
