Life of Istanbul Born Italian Actor Osvaldo Valenti

Mavi Boncuk |

Osvaldo Valenti  (b.17 February 1906 Istanbul, Turkey - d. 30 April 1945 Milan, Italy)

Osvaldo Valenti (17 February 1906 – 30 April 1945) was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 56 films between 1928 and 1945. He was born in Istanbul, Turkey. The career of Osvaldo Valenti found his height in the 40's.

The Italian actor Oswaldo Valenti began his film career with the German silent movie "Ungarische Rhapsodie" (1928), but with the rise of the sound he was no longer able to continue his work in Germany. Therefore he returned to Italy where he wrote his first name with a "v" again and he gained a foothold in Italy in the 30's.

In the political view Osvaldo Valenti had good contacts to fascist politicians and personalities. This was also the reason that his name was noted on the hit list of the partisans. He was a ember of the infamous Decima Mas (Fascist military force) during the Salò Republic (1943-1945).

During the shooting of "Un' avventure di Salvator Rosa" (1939) he met the actress Luisa Ferida. They fell in love and had a son, Kim who died 4 days after his birth; when they was killed, Luisa was expecting another child. 

He and his lover, Luisa Ferida[1] , were executed by partisans in Milan, Italy, due to their links with Fascism. At the same day when Adolf Hitler died in Berlin Osvaldo Valenti was killed too together with his pregnant wife Luisa Ferida. [2]

They were arrested on April 30, 1945 and were killed in broad daylight at the same day by partisans without a trial. Many years later it turned out that one of the participated heads of the partisans was the later Italian president Sandro Pertini[3].

The story of Valenti and Luisa Ferida was portrayed in the 2008 Marco Tullio Giordana ("Best of Youth") film Wild Blood (Sanguepazzo)[4]. He was portrayed by Luca Zingaretti (the detective of the hit TV series "Inspector Montalbano") and Monica Bellucci was Luisa Ferida. The film premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. 

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See also: Gundle, Stephen. Mussolini's Dream Factory: Film Stardom in Fascist Italy. Berghahn Books, 2013.


[1] Born Luigia Manfrini Frané 18 March 1914 Castel San Pietro Terme, Emilia-Romagna, Italy Died 30 April 1945 (aged 31) Milan, Ferida started as a stage actress. In 1935 she made her first appearance in film with a supporting role in La Freccia d'oro. Because of her photogenic looks and talent as an actress, she soon graduated to leading roles by the end of the 1930s. In 1939, while working on Un Avventura di Salvator Rosa (1940), directed by Alessandro Blasetti, she met the actor Osvaldo Valenti. The pair became romantically involved and had a son. Valenti had been linked with many Fascist officials and personalities for years and he eventually joined the Italian Social Republic, and for this reasons he was on the partisans' hit list. He was finally arrested in Milan, alongside a pregnant Ferida in April 1945. They were both sentenced to be executed and shot immediately in the street, without any proper trial.

[2] BURIAL Cimitero Maggiore di Musocco Milan, Città Metropolitana di Milano, Lombardia, Italy Show Map PLOT Field #10, Grave # 1381 

[3] The partisan chief who organized the execution, Giuseppe "Vero" Marozin, declared years later that one of the partisan leaders that ordered the two actors to be executed was Sandro Pertini, who decades later became president of the Italian republic. No other source, however, supports Marozin's version of the incident.

[4] REVIEW 

Osvaldo Valenti and Luisa Ferida, a popular onscreen and off-screen couple of the 1930s, might have been forgotten by time had they not become Fascist sympathizers and were killed by Partisans at the end of WWII. In "Sanguepazzo" – which premiered to a 10-minute standing ovation at Cannes – Marco Tullio Giordana ("Best of Youth") uses modern-day stars Monica Bellucci and Luca Zingaretti (the detective of the hit TV series "Inspector Montalbano") and all the ingredients of a classic epic to render them human. 

Although the story is largely unknown outside of Italy, Bellucci will surely draw international audiences. And as an intelligent melodrama the film can reach beyond the highbrow viewers of "Best of Youth" to more mainstream audiences. In Italy, however, some are already screaming "revisionism" and accusing the director of justifying the actions of the pair, who were allegedly accomplices to torture, although her guilt, at least, was dubitable at the time. Yet Giordana never makes apologies for them. 

After a weak start (including unnecessary black and white footage and Bellucci as a 20-something ingenue, which is impossible to swallow), the film quickly becomes compelling. The heart of "Sanguepazzo" is Luisa, ambitious and principled and in love with two men: seducer and gambler Osvaldo, and Golfiero (Alessio Boni, "Best of Youth"), the gay director who makes her a star. With Golfiero unattainable, Luisa and Osvaldo soon become inseparable companions. The heart of "Sanguepazzo" is Luisa, ambitious and principled and in love with two men: seducer and gambler Osvaldo, and Golfiero (Alessio Boni, "Best of Youth"), the gay director who makes her a star. With Golfiero unattainable, Luisa and Osvaldo soon become inseparable companions. 

Eventually, Golfiero joins the Resistance movement as Osvaldo -- addicted as much to fame and his self-importance as he is to drugs -- opportunistically allies himself with the Fascists, although he is the first to mock Mussolini. In a particularly memorable scene, he explains to a Fascist idealogue that that as an actor who usually plays the "bad guy" he embodies what normal people fantasize about but dare not do. So he indulges in the degraded and degrading and what is most unforgivable to society, and asks no one to pardon his "sins." Osvaldo knows better than most that there is good in the bad and bad in the good. 

Giordana strikes several universal, timeless notes here: the proximity of show business to power and the fact that celebrities are equally loved and loathed for the very excesses that bring them fame -- talent, fearlessness or recklessness. Also salient is Giordana's depiction of wartime. Having joined Mussolini's Salo Republic, the actors left Rome for a surreally sunny and peaceful Venice. While despicable, it is obvious why two social-climbing artists chose to relax on their yacht and dine on the Grand Canal at a time when the rest of the country was starving, fighting or dying. 

Bellucci is well cast as the "diva-within-a-diva," both known more their beauty than their skills. Boni is convincing as a man in love with a woman he can never fully love. But it is Zingaretti who ironically as the most flawed character gives the film it's humanity and depth. Whether pathetic, tender, cruel or jealous, he is always riveting.