Vita gazette – Sandra Milo, the actress, and Fellini’s muse, died in her home in Rome.

Sandra Milo, who turned 90 in 2023, has died. The family announced on Monday that she passed away in her home among the affection of her loved ones, as she had requested.

“Sandrocchia”, as Federico Fellini nicknamed her, for whom she was a muse, was one of the most famous actress in Italian cinema. With her participation in films such as General Della Rovere, Adua and her companions, Ghosts in Rome, Juliet of the Spirits, and 8½, awarded with an Oscar, she was among the protagonists of Italian cinema in the sixties. His career was very long, both in cinema and on TV. After his debut in “Lo scapula” alongside Alberto Sordi in 1955, she worked with many great directors, from Roberto Rossellini to Antonio Pietrangeli, from Sergio Corbucci to Luigi Zampa, Dino Risi, Luciano Salce, Duccio Tessari, Pupi Avati, Gabriele Salvatores up to Gabriele Muccino and as mentioned Fellini. Almost seventy years of cinema without ever stopping. In 1963, she starred in 8 1/2, also by Fellini, a film awarded the Best Foreign Film Award.

Life story

Born In Tunis to a Sicilian father and a Tuscan mother, she spent her childhood in Vicopisano, a medieval village near Pisa. As a teenager, she moved with her family to Viareggio.

Milo made her film debut alongside Alberto Sordi in Antonio Pietrangeli’s Lo Scapolo (1955). As a child, she was recognised for her exuberant, showy shapes and naive voice. She became a major on the big screen and acted in numerous genre films.

The first significant role came in 1959 thanks to the Greek producer Moris Ergas, who then married her: General Della Rovere, directed by Roberto Rossellini, in which she played the role of a prostitute alongside Vittorio De Sica. A similar role was played in 1960 in Adua e le Companions by Antonio Pietrangeli, who also directed it later. In the same year, she was directed by Claude Sautet in Hot Asphalt, starring Lino Ventura and Jean-Paul Belmondo, thus beginning an intense and promising season of auteur films. In 1961, she was the protagonist with Eduardo De Filippo, Vittorio Gassman, and Marcello Mastroianni in Fantasmi a Roma, directed by Antonio Pietrangeli.

Crucial was the meeting with Federico Fellini, who contributed to his artistic maturation and with whom he also began a clandestine relationship that lasted 17 years. In the two masterpieces of the Rimini Master, 8 ½ (1963) and Giuletta deli ordini (1965), “Sandrocchia” (as the director affectionately nicknamed her) plays the role of a femme fatale. For both films, she won the Nastro d’Argento as best supporting actress.

Her stormy love life, her marriage at the age of fifteen to the Marquis Cesare Rodighiero in 1948 (which lasted 21 days), the relationship that lasted eleven years with Moris Ergas (from whom Deborah, a television journalist, was born), and a subsequent union with Ottavio De Lollis ( with the birth of Ciro and then of Azzurra), overshadowed an intense cinematographic activity, which Milo abruptly interrupted in 1968 in favour of the family. The actress later stated in an interview that she had suffered severe physical violence from her ex-husband Ergas but that she preferred not to report it. Interviewed by Diva e Donna, she told of the recovery of her third child, Maria Azzurra, born prematurely in the seventh month of gestation, who seemed to have died at birth but came back to life. The Catholic Church recognised the miracle’s authenticity during the beatification process of Sister Maria Pia Pastena, founder of the Sisters of the Holy Face. Following the episode, Milo herself declared herself a believer and Catholic.

After a long brIn 1979, he returned to the cinema, acting in genre comedies such as Riovanti. Meanwhile, his new television career was taking shape.

Sandra Milo also entered the history of Italian TV with a famous joke against her in 1990, during the afternoon broadcast ‘Love is a wonderful thing’. An anonymous live phone call informs that his son Ciro is hospitalised in serious condition following a road accident. Milo can’t hold back her tears and runs away from the studio screaming ‘Ciro, Ciro’. The news of the accident turned out to be false, but his screams became a catchphrase in the media.

Among her latest commitments, Pupi Avati wanted her in 2003 in his film ‘Il Cuore Elsewhere’ and in 2010, Salvatores in his ‘Happy Family’. On the other hand, ‘8 Women and a Mystery’, ‘The Oval Bed’, ‘Steel Magnolias’, ‘The Widows’ Club and ‘Daddy’s Girlfriend’ had arrived at the theatre. In 2023, the last TV program, ‘Those Good Girls’ on Sky.

She had been close to the Italian Socialist Party since at least the 1960s and was close to Pietro Nenni. In the 1980s, Sandra Milo was the lover of Bettino Craxi, then leader of the PSI.

Sandra Milo died on January 29, 2024, at 90, in her home in Rome.