Her maid found her dead following a stroke, alone in her apartment at the gates of Rome, after a life of both scorching success and torment. Laura Antonelli was 73, and had spent much time alone and unhappy, tangled in problems of a decidedly unglamorous nature. It was with Malizia that Antonelli entered the upper echelons of the Italian film industry, but it was the beginning of a gradual decline. She played a subservient maid, supinely cleaning book shelves while the whole nation peered underneath her skirt. The film was a huge box-office success and continues to enjoy cult status, in part thanks to the cinematography by Vittorio Storaro an Oscar-winner for his work on Apocalypse Now , which captured her spellbinding beauty. The film brought her a David di Donatello, the Italian equivalent of an Oscar.
Laura Antonelli 28 November — 22 June was an Italian film actress, who appeared in 45 films between and Antonelli had a childhood interest in mathematics, but as a teenager, she became proficient at gymnastics. In an interview for The New York Times , she recalled, "My parents had made me take hours of gym classes during my teens They felt I was ugly, clumsy, insignificant and they hoped I would at least develop some grace. I became very good, especially in rhythmical gym , which is a kind of dance. Setting aside ambitions to make a career in mathematics, she graduated as a gymnastics instructor. She moved to Rome, where she became a secondary-school gym teacher and was able to meet people in the entertainment industry , who helped her find modelling jobs.
ROME — Actress Laura Antonelli, who became an Italian sex symbol in the s and worked with masters Luchino Visconti, Dino Risi, and Ettore Scola , proving her true thesping talent over a career spanning 45 movies during almost four decades, died Monday at her home in Ladispoli near Rome. She was Antonelli died of a heart attack in modest housing provided by Ladispoli social services in
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