Valeria Golino turns 60 today worn beautifully. Intense and refined actress, and among the very few to have managed to break through even at Hollywoodhas decided in recent years to focus mainly on Italian cinema. Alternating collaborations with the greatest contemporary authors to one fruitful career as a directorand always preferring strong and personal stories (in full harmony with his curious and sensitive spirit).
Valeria Golino turns 60: her first films and career
Born in Naples in 1965 to an Italian Germanist and a Greek painter, grows up at the hotel Beautiful Naplesrun by his grandfather. When his parents separated, he lives during his adolescence he went back and forth between Naples and Athens, and then moved to Rome where, thanks to his journalist uncle Enzo Golino, he meets director Lina Wertmüller at a party.
Struck by her beauty at the same time Mediterranean and Botticellian, Lina made her debut in 1983 alongside Ugo Tognazzi in Twist of fate lurking around the corner like a highway robber. The real consecration, however, arrives three years later thanks to Love story by Citto Maselli, with which he won the Volpi Cup as Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. Prize that he will win a second time in 2015 with the film For your sake by Giuseppe Gaudino.
In Hollywood with Tom Cruise and Charlie Sheen and the return to Italy
Curious by nature, instead of capitalizing on the success achieved in Italy he decides to move to Hollywood. In a very short time gets the role of Susanna in Rain Man – The rain man (next to Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman), a part that takes her to act in films like My life is a mess (1988) with Kris Kristofferson; in the meantime gets engaged to Benicio Del Torowith whom she remained linked until 1992.
Rejected at the audition for Pretty WomanValeria finds popular success thanks to the zany film Hot Shots! alongside Charlie Sheen. While Robert Altman does one of the leading actresses of The protagonistsreturns to Italy to star in Puerto Escondido by Gabriele Salvatores. He remained in Los Angeles until the early 2000s; years in which, despite being directed by authors such as John Carpenter and Sean Penn, her American career never explodes definitively, instead she is overwhelmed by calls from Italy, where they want her hero.
Valenia Golino and Sarah Jessica Parker at the MTV Movie Awards in 1995. (Photo by Ke.Mazur/WireImage)
The authorial consecration of Valeria Golino and Donatello’s first Davids
Without neglecting the American setsand adding to his resume too lots of French cinemaValeria rings a series of films where he reaches artistic maturity. For example with titles like Breath by Emanuele Crialese and the intense Mario’s war by Antonio Capuano, where she plays the foster mother of a problematic child: a role that gives her the first David as Best Leading Actress.
On the sets of Cristina Comencini, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Sergio Rubini and Mimmo Calopresti she is not always the protagonist, but even in the smallest roles, with his talent he manages to make even the most “secondary” character unforgettable. The case of the party in Human capital by Paolo Virzì – so in 2014 he won the second David as Best Supporting Actress.
The love story with Riccardo Scamarcio
The two actors met in 2005 on the film set Texas by Fausto Paravidino. Despite a 14 year age gap between them, an overwhelming love story is born. The relationship takes them over the years to work together in many films from The black man by Rubini a Honey (Golino’s directorial debut) until The Holidaymakers of our mutual friend Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.
In February 2015, photos of the publications of the wedding in Puglia, in Andria, appeared in the newspapers, a wedding which however would never take place. The following year the two announced their separation after 10 years of love, a very painful event for both of them. «It’s not easy – she says – for someone who has lived and dreamed as a couple for a long time. However, our story will never end because it is evolving into something different, it has started again on new foundations. Riccardo and I are each other’s family”. They actually go back to acting together; with Scamarcio also directed by Valeria-director in Euphoria.
Success as a director and the TV series The art of joy
Becoming a director allowed Golino to «escape even more towards others»the target of his gaze. The debut took place in 2013 with Honeyhistory of young Irene (Jasmine Trinca), “in code” called Miele, who secretly helps terminally ill patients by practicing euthanasia. A film that, inspired by the novel I forgive you by Angela Del Fabbro (pseudonym of Mauro Covacich), has received acclaim from the public and critics.
After Euphoria in 2018, last year Valeria directed the TV series The art of joy taken from the novel of the same name by Goliarda Sapienza and with Tecla Insolia in the title role. Produced by Sky, is set in Sicily in the early twentieth century and tells the life of Modesta, an orphan who fights to emancipate herself and assert one’s freedom. Raised in a convent, she crosses every social and moral barrier to build her destiny. A lyrical and powerful journey between desire, power and self-determination female.
Valeria Golino on the set of “The Art of Joy”.
Comrade Fabio Palombi and the new film by Valeria Golino: Short love story
After the end of the relationship with Scamarcio, since 2018 Valeria has been a steady couple with Fabio Palombi, a 34-year-old Roman lawyer specializing in copyright. Palombi is also vice-president of the cultural association “Youth for Rome”which is dedicated to the social integration of young people in the capital
A few days ago, at the Rome Film Festival, Valeria returned to the red carpet with the film Short love story directed by Ludovica Rampoldi, already screenwriter of many Marco Bellocchio films. The protagonists are 4 characters – two in their thirties and two in their fifties – involved in an emotional and sentimental entanglement which radically changes their lives.
Lea (Pilar Fogliati) meets Rocco (Adriano Giannini) in a bar and a relationship is born between the two clandestine. What begins as an ordinary betrayal becomes more complicated when Lea insinuates herself into the man’s private lifeeven involving their respective partners: Andrea (Andrea Carpenzano) and Cecilia (Golino). The film will be released in theaters on November 27th.