Benedetta Barzini
Benedetta Barzini (born September 22, 1943, in Porto Santo Stefano) is an Italian actress and model, daughter of Italian journalist and author Luigi Barzini, Jr. and his second wife, heiress Paola Gadola Feltrinelli. As such she is the stepsister of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, an Italian publisher and left-wing political activist.[1]
She was a model from 1963-1969 and established a successful fashion career in New York City.[2] In December 1966, she was named one of the "100 Great Beauties of the World" by the American fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar. That same year, Barzini became involved with, and later engaged to, New York poet and media artist Gerard Malanga, an early collaborator of Andy Warhol.[1] Malanga's black-and-white film In Search of the Miraculous (1967) is an emotional, vivid poem of adoration for Barzini.
She was clearly headed for the top rank of New York models, but decided to return to Italy to act. She met Italian film director Roberto Faenza, and they married in 1969. On the night she gave birth to twins Nini and Giacomo, Faenza left her.[1] She had two children with another man later.[2]
In 1973 she left the modeling business to become a Marxist and radical feminist organizer in her hometown of Milan.[1] She joined the Italian Communist Party.[2]
As of 2008, she is teaching in Milan.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d Once a 'Vogue' Star, Benedetta Barzini Is Now Fashion's La Pasionaria, People Magazine, Vol.8, No. 2, July 11, 1977
- ^ a b c (Italian) Mama, che male, intervista con Benedetta Barzini, Il Venerdi, November 3, 2000
