Isa Miranda
Isa Miranda (born Ines Isabella Sampietro, 5 July 1909 – 8 July 1982) was an Italian actress with an international film career. Biography. Born Ines Isabella Sampietro in Milan, she worked as a typist while attending the Accademia dei Filodrammatici in Milan and training as a stage actress. She went on to play bit parts in Italian films in Rome. She changed her name to Isa Miranda and success came with Max Ophüls' film "La Signora di tutti" ("Everybody's Woman"; 1934) in which she played Gaby Doriot, a famous film star and adventuress with whom men cannot  help falling in love. This performance brought in its wake several film offers and a Hollywood contract with Paramount Pictures. There, billed as the "Italian Marlene Dietrich", she played femme fatale roles in films such as "Hotel Imperial" (1939) and "Adventure in Diamonds" (1940). She returned to Italy soon after the outbreak of World War II and continued to act onstage and to make films. In 1949, she starred in René Clément's "The Walls of Malapaga", which won an Academy Award for the most outstanding foreign language film of 1950, and for Miranda, the Palme d'Or at the Cannes  Film Festival. Another success of that period was "La Ronde" (1950), also directed by Ophüls. Her career took her to France, Germany and Britain, where she frequently appeared in TV films, including "The Avengers". Other notable film appearances included "Siamo donne" (1953), a portmanteau film, in which Miranda shared the screen with Anna Magnani, Alida Valli and Ingrid Bergman; "Summertime" (1955), starring Katharine Hepburn; "Gli Sbandati" (1955); "The Yellow Rolls-Royce" (1964); "The Shoes of the Fisherman" (1968); and Liliana Cavani's "The Night Porter" (1974). Miranda was married to the Italian director and producer Alfredo Guarini until his death  in 1981. She died in Rome on 8 July 1982.