Carla Gravina Biography

Carla Gravina played leading roles in international productions from the '50s through the '90s and served as a former deputy in the Italian parliament. She made her feature-film debut in 1956 playing opposite comedian Toto and Vittorio Gassman in I Soliti Ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street/Big Deal). Gravina appeared in three more films between then and 1960, including Tutti a Casa! (Everybody Go Home) before disappearing from the screen. It would be eight years before she appeared in her next film, La Monaca di Monza: Una Storia Lombarda. In 1979, Gravina won a Best Supporting Actress award at that year's Cannes Film Festival for La Terrazza (The Terrace). After that, she worked with the government through 1983. A decade later, Gravina was named Best Actress at the 1993 Montreal Film Festival for her work in Margarethe Von Trotta's Lungo Silenco. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi