Silvana Pampanini (born 25 September 1925) is an Italian actress. She was Miss Italy in 1946 and the following year she started her movie career.
Life and career
Born in Rome, she became one of the most popular movie actresses in her country and was considered a sex symbol in the 1950s. In 1955 she visited New York, Denver and Hollywood but rejected job offers because she could not speak English properly and had some problems with the tax office.
She was also popular in France, where they nicknamed her Ninì Pampan, Spain, where she worked in Tirma, South America, especially in Mexico, where she starred in Sed de Amor with Pedro Armendáriz, and Egypt. She appeared with other internationally important actors and directors such as Buster Keaton, Vittorio Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni, Alberto Sordi, Totò, Jean Gabin, Henri Vidal, Abel Gance, Vittorio De Sica. She preceded the more popular Italian stars Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida who worked as extras in some of her early films. According to the press, she flirted with personalities such as Tyrone Power, William Holden, Orson Welles, Omar Sharif, George DeWitt, Marcos Pérez Jiménez and Fidel Castro; nevertheless, she never married and had no children.
Her success was not long-lasting and in the 1960s she left the movie career to take care of her parents, preferring to appear now and then on radio and television. Additionally, she is Rosetta Pampanini‘s niece, an Italian soprano. In fact, before she became a movie star, she wanted to become an opera singer. In 1996 she published Shockingly Respectable, her autobiography written in Italian language.
Text from Wikipedia
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