Laura Betti (née Trombetti; 1 May 1927 – 31 July 2004) was an Italian actress known particularly for her work with directors Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci. She had a long friendship with Pasolini and made a documentary about him in 2001.
Betti became famous for portraying bizarre, grotesque, eccentric, unstable or maniacal roles, like Regina in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900, Anna the medium in Twitch of the Death Nerve, Giovanna la pazza in Woman Buried Alive, hysterical Rita Zigai in Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina, Therese in Private Vices, Public Virtues, Emilia the servant in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema for which she won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress, and Mildred the protagonist’s wife in Mario Bava’s Hatchet for the Honeymoon.
Born Laura Trombetti in Casalecchio di Reno, near Bologna, she grew up to be interested in singing. She first worked professionally in the arts as a jazz singer and moved to Rome.
Betti made her film debut in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960). In 1963, she became a close friend of the poet and movie director Pier Paolo Pasolini. Under his direction, she proved a wonderful talent and played in seven of his films, including La ricotta (1963), Teorema (Theorem, 1968), his 1972 version of The Canterbury Tales, in which she played the Wife of Bath; and his controversial Salo (1975) (“120 Days of Sodom”).
In 1976, Betti portrayed Regina, a cruel and eroto-maniacal fascist in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Novecento (1900). She also played Miss Blandish in his Last Tango in Paris (1972), though her single scene was deleted.
In 1973 she dubbed the voice of the Devil for the Italian version of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist.
From the 1960s, Betti dedicated much of her time to literature and politics. She became the muse for a number of leading political and literary figures in Italy and came to personify the revolutionary and Marxist era of 1970s Italy.
In 2001, she made a documentary about Pasolini, Pier Paolo Pasolini e la ragione di un sogno. She also donated her papers related to their long friendship along with more than 1000 volumes and many documents connected to Pasolini to the archives of the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, thus creating the Centro Studi Archivio Pier Paolo Pasolini. This Centro, strongly wanted by Betti, owns also thousands of photograph and all the works of Pasolini: poetry, literature, cinema and journalism. After her death in 2004 her brother Sergio Trombetti has donated all the personal documents of her career to the Centro that has absorbed them under the name Fondo Laura Betti.
Source: Article “Laura Betti” from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Laura Betti Biography / Wiki
| Name | Laura Betti |
| Also Know | ラウラ・ベッティ, Laura Trombetti |
| Gender | Female |
| Known For | Acting |
| Place of Birth | Casalecchio di Reno, Emilia-Romagna, Italy |
| Date of Birth | May 01, 1927 |
| Age(as in 2023 Feb) | 77 |
| Deathday | 2004-07-31 |
Laura Betti Acting Movies
| Movie Name | Character | Release Date | Overview |
| Pasolini, el poeta en la playa | Herself | 2000-11-30 | … |
| Orgy | Donna | 1968-11-27 | The tragic and self-destructive sexual battle between a man and his wife. A drama for the desperate struggle of those who are different against the no… |
| The Canterbury Tales | The Wife from Bath | 1972-09-02 | Glimpses of Chaucer penning his famous work are sprinkled through this re-enactment of several of his stories…. |
| The Seagull | Irina | 1977-07-02 | A young writer is trapped between his awful actress mother and the knowledge that he has only a mediocre talent as a playwright and almost no force of… |
| Whoever Says the Truth Shall Die | Self | 1981-02-28 | Philo Bregstein tells us this film looks at Pasolini’s life and art to explain why he died. The film traces Pasolini’s life chronologically – family r… |
| Maresco / Pasolini | Herself | 2021-05-05 | Franco Maresco celebrates the heritage of Pier Paolo Pasolini on the 99th anniversary of his birth through a series of exchanges with renowned intelle… |
| Hatchet for the Honeymoon | Mildred Harrington | 1970-06-02 | A madman haunted by the ghost of his ex-wife carves a corpse-laden trail…. |
| La nuit, tous les chats sont gris | Jacqueline | 1977-11-23 | Playwright Charles Watson entertains his niece Lily by telling her about the adventures of Philibert.Both these people have something to do with Phili… |
| The Return | Clara | 1973-09-30 | A man receives a telegram that his father is dying, and travels with his wife to his hometown. They discover that the telegram is untrue, and set out … |
| Laura’s Passion | Self (archive footage) | 2011-10-29 | A portrait of Laura Betti with archival footage and stories of friends: Bernardo Bertolucci remembers Laura in “Novecento” and in a lost sequence of “… |
| Gli astronomi | Pavoncella | 2003-01-01 | … |
| Ecco | Self | 1963-11-15 | A documentary highlighting some of the oddest, strangest and more grotesque examples of human behavior. Included are a tour of the Grand Guignol theat… |
| Abicinema | Self | 1975-08-09 | … |
| Pier Paolo Pasolini : vivre et encore plus | Elle-même | 1976-02-03 | … |
| Loin de Manhattan | Madame Hanska | 1982-01-27 | Christian, an art critic, must write a study on the painter René Dimanche in order to understand why he did not produce anything for eight years. He … |
| Allonsanfan | Esther Imbriani | 1974-09-06 | After the 1815 Restoration, an aging revolutionary finds himself reluctantly involved in an attempted insurrection in Southern Italy while growing inc… |
| Mario, Maria and Mario | Laura | 1993-12-05 | Mario and Maria Boschi, a 30-year-old couple with small children, are hit by a crisis: husband and wife cannot agree on a party name. A colleague, als… |
| Marianna Ucrìa | Giuseppa | 1997-08-13 | In 18th-century Sicily, deaf-mute highborn Marianna Ucrìa is forced to marry his uncle Pietro, a disgusting old man, at age 13. She bears three child… |
| Class Relations | Brunelda | 1984-02-21 | A young man, recently arrived in New York from Europe, becomes swept up in a series of events that are beyond his knowledge or control…. |
| Stop the World… I Want to Get Off! | 1970-10-08 | This lysergically madcap Italian flick largely eschews any traditional plot. The most noticeable thread involves ventriloquist Ricky becoming a TV sta… | |
| Jane B. by Agnès V. | Lardy | 1988-03-02 | The interests, obsessions, and fantasies of two singular artists converge in this inspired collaboration between Agnès Varda and her longtime friend … |
| Gallant Ladies | Catherine de Medicis | 1990-11-14 | Despite being busy with his profession of soldiery, Brantome manages to find much more time for amorous dalliances with the ladies of the 16th-century… |
| The Art of Love | Clio | 1983-12-07 | Young student Claudine has a dream in which the Roman student Cornelius, fascinated by the beautiful wife of the commander, attends lectures on the ar… |
| My Name Is Anna Magnani | Self | 1980-09-30 | Traces the life of Anna Magnani, her creations, her successes, her triumphs, her boycotted career, her nonconformism, her anxieties, her generosity ….. |
| The Earth As Seen from the Moon | un turista | 1967-02-22 | Ciancicato Miao and his son, after the death of his wife and mother by mushroom poisoning, are dedicated to find her replacement and have no luck unti… |
| The Cousin | Rosalia Scuderi | 1974-07-26 | Italian coming of age story about two cousins, Enzo and Agata, told in three stages…. |
| The Little Archimedes | La signora Bondi | 1979-05-30 | The action takes place in Florence in the 1930s. Alfred, an Englishman who moved to that city in order to write a book on Giotto, meets a boy who is f… |
| Il diario di Matilde Manzoni | 2002-09-27 | … | |
| Paulina Is Leaving | Hortense | 1969-09-01 | Paulina leaves the apartment where she lives with her two brothers, Nicolas and Olivier. Her departure is mark by chaotic and sometimes violent confro… |
| Happiness Costs Nothing | Suora | 2003-01-31 | … |
| Private Vices, Public Virtues | Teresa | 1976-05-06 | The setting is a Central European kingdom, near the turn of the century. Bored by his very proper wife, the youthful heir to the throne spends his tim… |
| Blame it on Paradise | direttrice | 1985-01-01 | A former convict discovers that his son has been adopted by a couple living on the mountains and tries to establish a contact with him… |
| Lovers and Liars | Laura | 1979-01-05 | American actress on vacation in Italy falls for her friend’s married Italian lover…. |
| Fratella e sorello | Presidente del Tribunale | 2005-06-01 | The story of an unlikely friendship between two men: Giocondo, a wealthy upper middle class man passionately in love with Nono, a black strip-teaser w… |
| Pasolini and the Secret Humiliation of Chaucer | Interviewee | 2006-06-30 | Documentary about the making of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Canterbury Tales (1972), and particularly focusing on the many edits and cut scenes that wer… |
| Sweets from a Stranger | Jolanda | 1987-04-24 | A serial killer is terrifying the prostitutes in a big Italian city. After few barbaric murdering four prostitutes Lena, Angela, Nadine and Stella dec… |
| What Are the Clouds? | Desdemona | 1968-04-12 | Some puppets come to life in a theater with no windows. This time the puppets interpret William Shakespeare’s Othello…. |
| Jenatsch | Mademoiselle von Planta | 1987-06-01 | A journalist is assigned to interview an eccentric anthropologist who has exhumed the skeleton of Jörg Jenatsch, a revered freedom fighter who was my… |
| Fat Girl | Fernando’s Mother | 2001-03-07 | Anaïs is twelve and bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. She watches her older sister, Elena, whom she both loves and hates. Elena is fift… |
| Theorem | Emilia, the Servant | 1968-09-07 | A wealthy Italian household is turned upside down when a handsome stranger arrives, seduces every family member and then disappears. Each has an epiph… |
| Un eroe borghese | Dottoressa Trebbi | 1995-03-03 | An intriguing look at a sinister web of power,linking politics and the mafia in modern day Italy…. |
| Red Lips | The Painter | 1960-05-14 | A lawyer heads out on the road in an attempt to find his daughter who has been missing for quite some time. To help him navigate the secret world his … |
| The Carpathian Mushroom | Olympia | 1990-03-07 | A miraculous mushroom is discovered by a film director’s daughter.It would be used to cure an actress…. |
| In the Name of the Father | Franco’s Mother | 1971-10-12 | In 1958 Angelo, a rich and spoiled boy, enters a religious school, where students are tired of its vice-rector, and the strict rules and old-fashioned… |
| Einzelzimmer | Calogera | 1979-05-13 | … |
| A Bay of Blood | Anna Fossati | 1971-09-08 | An elderly heiress is killed by her husband who wants control of her fortunes. What ensues is an all-out murder spree as relatives and friends attempt… |
| Mother Ebe | Lidia Corradi | 1985-04-08 | Based on the story of the woman recently brought to trial on charges of moral plagiarism and witchcraft…. |
| The Woman with Red Boots | Léonore | 1974-12-11 | An elderly millionaire manipulates an avant-garde writer and a happily married man…. |
| Household Accounts | 2003-03-07 | Period giallo about a young cook who’s accused of killing her wealthy husband…. | |
| 1900 | Regina | 1976-09-01 | The epic tale of a class struggle in twentieth century Italy, as seen through the eyes of two childhood friends on opposing sides…. |
| The Gang | Felicia | 1977-01-19 | In 1945, as World War Two comes to a close, five small time crooks unite to form a gang. After several bold robberies they become notorious as “the fr… |
| Ro.Go.Pa.G. | Sonia, the ‘Diva’ (segment “La ricotta”) | 1963-02-19 | Four short films by four different directors dealing with the principles of modern life…. |
| La Ribelle | Sister Valida | 1993-08-20 | … |
| I cammelli | Milena | 1988-09-19 | Ferruccio, who knows everything about camels, and Camillo, who acts as his manager, go to Milan to take part in a telequiz…. |
| Slap the Monster on Page One | Rita Zigai | 1972-10-19 | 1972, Milan. Just a few days before the general elections, a young girl from an esteemed family is raped and murdered. Bizanti, editor-in-chief of a c… |
| The Night of Varennes | Virginia Capacelli | 1982-05-15 | During the French Revolution, a surprising company shares a coach, trying to catch up something – the time itself, perhaps…. |
| Escape by Night | Teresa | 1960-10-07 | In Nazi-occupied Rome, a beautiful bootlegger, to the chagrin of her lover, gives sanctuary to three escaped POWs: an American pilot, a Russian sergea… |
| The Murri Affair | Tisa Borghi | 1974-09-28 | Based on a true incident, this tells the story of a troubled young man who kills his sister’s reactionary, violent and abusive husband and is eventual… |
| Caprice Italian Style | Desdemona | 1968-04-13 | The film consists of six short stories created by different directors, but all the stories share one thing: a warm irony to current events…. |
| Butterfly on the Shoulder | Madame Carrabo | 1978-05-03 | On a stopover in Barcelona, Fériaud Roland discovers a corpse in the hotel room next door. He wakes up in a strange clinic without remembering who br… |
| Renzo e Lucia | Madre Superiora | 2004-01-13 | Loose adaptation of Italy’s national epic, Alessandro Manzoni’s “The Betrothedâ€. In war-torn 17th century Italy, shady feudal lord Don Rodrigo eye… |
| Widow’s Walk | Keli | 1987-12-02 | Molinat is assigned to the case of a man found with a bullet in his ear on the shore of a little Atlantic coast resort he knows well. Indeed, he used … |
| Oedipus Rex | Jocasta’s Maid (uncredited) | 1967-09-07 | In pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son – and the scene moves to antiquity, where the baby is tak… |
| Suffocating Heat | Laura | 1991-08-26 | On June 30, 1990, in Rome, Marie Christine is getting ready to take her son Pietro and Paolo to their father for the weekend. As the Football World Cu… |
| Sonny and Jed | Betty | 1972-08-11 | Jed (Tomas Milian) is an unlikely hero in this Italian western. As thoroughly unlikeable a robber as ever walked the West, he nonetheless robs from th… |
| Woman Buried Alive | Giovanna la Pazza | 1973-01-01 | Duke Philippe married Cristina, daughter of a fisherman. But his brothers, seeing that these after marriage they would miss out inheritance, decide to… |
| Marx Can Wait | Irina (archive footage) (uncredited) | 2021-07-15 | “Marx can wait” was something Camillo Bellocchio said to his twin Marco the last time they met before the former died at a young age in the heated day… |
| A Man Called Sledge | Sister | 1970-11-14 | James Garner is Luther Sledge, the leader of a pack of rebels who are planning to steal a stash of gold. But after the thieves actually manage to get … |
| La Dolce Vita | Laura | 1960-02-05 | Journalist and man-about-town Marcello struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of Rome’s elite social scene and the stifling… |
| Raul – Diritto di uccidere | Usuraia | 2005-04-15 | … |
| The Witches | Male Tourist | 1967-02-22 | Five short stories loosely dealing with the roles of women in society. A superstar actress travels to a mountain resort, only to evoke jealousy from w… |
| The Great Pumpkin | Aida | 1993-02-10 | An epileptic 12-year-old girl, Pippi, is hospitalized in the psychiatric ward instead of the neurological ward, due to an administration error. Out of… |
| With Closed Eyes | Beatrice | 1994-11-22 | In the Tuscan countryside at the end of the 19th century, Pietro, the shy son of a tyrannical landowner, falls in love with Ghisola, a peasant girl wi… |
| La rabbia di Pasolini | Self (archive footage) | 2008-09-05 | An attempt to reconstruct the complete version of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s segment of La rabbia…. |
| RARA | 1969-05-30 | In all of his work, Bussotti makes frequent reference to the body, to sexuality. This to remind musicians — especially classically trained ones — … | |
Laura Betti Directing Movies
| Movie Name | Job | Release Date | Overview |
| Pier Paolo Pasolini and the Reason of a Dream | Director | 2002-07-27 | Through interviews, archive footage and quotes from books and films by Pasolini, Laura Betti, friend, actress and collaborator of Pasolini, improvises… |
| Il silenzio è complicità | Director | 1976-01-01 | … |
Writing
| Movie Name | Job | Release Date | Overview |
| Stop the World… I Want to Get Off! | Writer | 1970-10-08 | This lysergically madcap Italian flick largely eschews any traditional plot. The most noticeable thread involves ventriloquist Ricky becoming a TV sta… |
| Hatchet for the Honeymoon | Screenplay | 1970-06-02 | A madman haunted by the ghost of his ex-wife carves a corpse-laden trail…. |
Other Info
| Movie Name | Job | Release Date | Overview |
| A Bay of Blood | Additional Writing | 1971-09-08 | An elderly heiress is killed by her husband who wants control of her fortunes. What ensues is an all-out murder spree as relatives and friends attempt… |
Credit: TMDB
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