The Italian Vamps: All For Love

This is my entry in the Anti-Damsel blogathon, hosted by Movies, Silently and The Last Drive In. Click HERE for more great posts about the great, strong women of film. This post also serves as the second part of the 3-part series on Vamps. Click HERE for the first entry about Theda Babra and Nita Naldi. 

The Vamp, the term for ladies who, in the early days of the 20 ^th century, liked sex, was a potent antidote to the virginal heroines of the silent screen.  The cure for too much Mary Pickford might be “take a Theda Bara and call me in the morning.” Too much Lillian Gish? A shot of Nita Naldi might cure what ails you.

During these vamp-ish times, a trio of Italian divas tore up the screen and added an element of suffering and passion on a grand, operatic scale. They made Theda look positively sedate. They were never damsel s in distress in the strict sense. No, the overwhelming passion and were usually the cause of the distress of their own making.

Lyda Borelli

Beautiful and fashionable, Lyda Borelli was an Italian stage and screen actress of great influence. Lyda was born in 1887 into a family of actors. By the time she was 18, she had already made a name for herself on the Italian stage, based on her beauty, talent and fashionable appearance. Her looks, mannerisms and clothing were copied by her many admirers.  Young women who copied her looks were said to have dressed in the “borellismo” style.

In 1913 she made her first film (“Everlasting Love”). It was a smash and her success now extended beyond the Italian stage to the world of screen. She was the epitome of florid romance, desire and sensuality.  Her characters emotionally operatic and usually ended up at the wrong end of a bottle of poison or a dagger (her fate was death in more than half of her films).

She continued her highly successful film career through 1918, when she married a count and abruptly retired. At her last theatrical performance the audience wept and pelted her with flowers, so great was her enchantment.   Lyda spent the rest of her life caring for family and living the life of a countess until her death in 1959. Clearly, the drama was for the stage and screen only.

Francesca Bertini

Francesca Bertini (born in 1892) was also the child of an actress. Like Lyda Borelli, she got her start on the stage, but unlike Lyda, she moved quickly into the new art of the silent films.

She began her movie career in 1913 and quickly established herself as a strong, elegant and talented performer. Her fame quickly spread beyond the borders of Italy. By 1915 she was earning more than Mary Pickford. While her roles included the heavy-duty characters of Odette, Tosca and Camille , her acting was considered to be more natural and understated than that of the typical vamp. She suffered, she loved, but she did it “naturally.”

Bertini was able to move into sound films with limited success, but the Italian film industry took a nose dive starting in the 1930s and during World War II. She was offered a Hollywood contract by Fox, but she had retired after the war, enjoying her life with her wealthy Swiss husband. She had made but a handful of films from 1930 – 1943. She appeared for Bernardo Bertolucci in is 1976 film “Novecento (“1900”) and consented to an interview in 1982.  Francesca passed away at age 93 in 1985.

Check out this fabulous diva in all her glory. What a woman.

Pina Menichelli

Think decadent, think bodice-ripping, think hand-wringing and eye-popping and you pretty much have the acting style of silent screen  vamp Pina Menichelli, known as  "our lady of spasms."

Like her sister-vamps, Pina was born into a theatrical family and acted as a child, but unlike Lyda and Francesca, she was a passionate off-screen as on. After a failed teenage marriage to an Argentine gent, Pina began her Italian film career in 1913 at the age of 23. Critics took notice and she soon entered the rarefied queendom of fellow divas Borellia and Bertini. She attained international stardom in "The Fire" and "Royal Tiger," 2 films whose names aptly describe Pina's ardent, florid, and dangerous persona.

Pina maintained her stardom through 1923, when she retired. Although she was estranged from her first husband, he would not divorce her. Upon his death in 1924 Pina was free to marry again and, like the true diva she was, she destroyed all physical evidence of her great film career and never spoke of it again in public for the rest of her life. Pina Menichelli passed away at age 94 in 1984. 

Lyda Borelli, Francesca Bertini and Pina Menichelli- divine divas and vamps who were larger than life and definitely bellisima!