Masina, Giulietta (1921–1994)

Italian actor. Married from 1943 to director Federico Fellini, she appeared in several of his films. Her portrayal of a put-upon waif in La strada/The Street (1954) was compared to Charlie Chaplin for its pathos and comedy. In Le notti di Cabiria/Nights of Cabiria (1957), she played a naive prostitute.

Masina was born near Bologna and started acting while a student, subsequently achieving success on the radio. Her first important film role was in Senza Pietà/Without Pity (1948), for which she won the Italian critics' award as Best Supporting Actress. The acclaim that greeted La Strada and Le Notti di Cabiria, for which she won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival, led to her working outside Italy in such films as the French-made Landru (1963), but without real success. Her only English-language picture, The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969), proved an expensive flop. In the meantime she had starred in Fellini's Giulietta degli spiriti/Juliet of the Spirits (1965), but later her screen appearances became less frequent. In 1985, however, she returned to the screen in her husband's Ginger e Fred/Ginger and Fred, appropriately in the guise of a show-business veteran making a comeback.