Guys you have got to see her in Il Sorpasso (1962) - if not for her then for Vittorio Gassman & Jean-Louis Trintignant. A must-see classic.
And The Empty Canvass not only has her nude but also Bette Davis in full campy mode. Also worth a watch.
R.I.P. Catherine Spaak
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Big Magilla
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Re: R.I.P. Catherine Spaak
I saw her in two - Hotel and Cat o' Nine Tails.
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Mister Tee
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Re: R.I.P. Catherine Spaak
I note, looking over her IMDB page, that the only movie of hers I ever saw was Hotel, and that was sometime in the past decade. But her name has been in my head for many years, because I remember the ads for The Empty Canvas, which strongly suggested she was naked in the film -- something still very unusual in 1963, and of huge interest to an 11-year old boy.
She seems to have had a long and interesting career, most of it confined to Italy and thus away from my eyes. A salute to her on a passing that seems too young by modern standards.
She seems to have had a long and interesting career, most of it confined to Italy and thus away from my eyes. A salute to her on a passing that seems too young by modern standards.
R.I.P. Catherine Spaak
Farewell to Catherine Spaak, she was 77 years old. She had been ill for some time.
April 17, 2022
Catherine Spaak has died at 77. Actress, writer, singer, dancer, TV presenter, protagonist of Italian cinema in the sixties and seventies, she was born in 1945 in Boulogne-Billancourt, in the Île-de-France region, to a Belgian family. "I learn with pain of the death of Catherine Spaak, a multifaceted, cultured and elegant artist who has found a home in our country that has welcomed and loved her. I cling to family and friends on this sad day ”, commented the Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini.
In 2020 she had a brain hemorrhage and was in danger of dying. To Italian stories she had said: "I came to say that if we are sick we should not be ashamed. I’m still here with a smile, with the ability to reason and speak, but also to rebel. I have not lost my determination and courage". Then she had also had an epileptic seizure: "I didn’t walk and I didn’t see. I don’t remember anything about this crisis and I find it beautiful. We are treated, healed and we go back to having the same life as before".
She began working in cinema as a teenager, at the age of 15 with a French film, “Il buco”, by Jaques Becker. “I left with a letter from my father authorizing me to work. I was terrified of acting, I lived in terror for years. I didn’t want to be an actress but a classical dancer, I was too tall at the time. But doing this job was my salvation, ”she said. Among the Italians, the first to notice it was Alberto Lattuada who chooses her in “The sweet deceptions” of 1960, for the character of Francesca, a student from a good family who gives herself to a mature man: the film ends up at the center of a public debate , is censored, she is “tagged” and later cast for similar roles.
The sixties
The turning point came in the Sixties when Spaak became the actress of the Italian Comedy starring in films such as Damiano Damiani’s “La Noia”. In 1962 she had acted with Vittorio Gassman in “Il sorpasso” by Dino Risi, in the role of Lilly. Then, in the same year, Luciano Salce’s “The mad desire” arrives, alongside Ugo Tognazzi: it is here that she meets Fabrizio Capucci, whom she will marry in 1963. The following year she was in Mario Monicelli’s “L’armata Brancaleone”.
Then there was the music, thanks to the warm voice she had. The Dischi Ricordi for “You make me afraid” (1964) and “Those of my age”, “The army of surf” become hits from Hit parade, relaunched by her guest appearances in the television varieties on Saturday night.
Also in ’64 she received the Golden Plaque for the David di Donatello but it is Hollywood that dreams even if it will never break through there: she plays in “Intrigues at the Grand Hotel” directed by Richard Quine, with Rod Taylor and Karl Malden but with little success.
Loves
From her first husband, Capucci she had a daughter, Sabrina, with whom she always had a complicated relationship. She said: "They took my daughter from me, the judge maintained that the mother, that is to say I, being an actress, was of dubious morality. So the little girl would stay with her paternal grandmother. They destroyed the lives of both of us".
Then from 1972 to 1979 she was married to Johnny Dorelli and had a son, Gabriele. The third husband, Daniel Rey, arrived in 1993 and would be her last until 2010. In 2013 she married Vladimiro Tuselli, a relationship that lasted until 2020.
April 17, 2022
Catherine Spaak has died at 77. Actress, writer, singer, dancer, TV presenter, protagonist of Italian cinema in the sixties and seventies, she was born in 1945 in Boulogne-Billancourt, in the Île-de-France region, to a Belgian family. "I learn with pain of the death of Catherine Spaak, a multifaceted, cultured and elegant artist who has found a home in our country that has welcomed and loved her. I cling to family and friends on this sad day ”, commented the Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini.
In 2020 she had a brain hemorrhage and was in danger of dying. To Italian stories she had said: "I came to say that if we are sick we should not be ashamed. I’m still here with a smile, with the ability to reason and speak, but also to rebel. I have not lost my determination and courage". Then she had also had an epileptic seizure: "I didn’t walk and I didn’t see. I don’t remember anything about this crisis and I find it beautiful. We are treated, healed and we go back to having the same life as before".
She began working in cinema as a teenager, at the age of 15 with a French film, “Il buco”, by Jaques Becker. “I left with a letter from my father authorizing me to work. I was terrified of acting, I lived in terror for years. I didn’t want to be an actress but a classical dancer, I was too tall at the time. But doing this job was my salvation, ”she said. Among the Italians, the first to notice it was Alberto Lattuada who chooses her in “The sweet deceptions” of 1960, for the character of Francesca, a student from a good family who gives herself to a mature man: the film ends up at the center of a public debate , is censored, she is “tagged” and later cast for similar roles.
The sixties
The turning point came in the Sixties when Spaak became the actress of the Italian Comedy starring in films such as Damiano Damiani’s “La Noia”. In 1962 she had acted with Vittorio Gassman in “Il sorpasso” by Dino Risi, in the role of Lilly. Then, in the same year, Luciano Salce’s “The mad desire” arrives, alongside Ugo Tognazzi: it is here that she meets Fabrizio Capucci, whom she will marry in 1963. The following year she was in Mario Monicelli’s “L’armata Brancaleone”.
Then there was the music, thanks to the warm voice she had. The Dischi Ricordi for “You make me afraid” (1964) and “Those of my age”, “The army of surf” become hits from Hit parade, relaunched by her guest appearances in the television varieties on Saturday night.
Also in ’64 she received the Golden Plaque for the David di Donatello but it is Hollywood that dreams even if it will never break through there: she plays in “Intrigues at the Grand Hotel” directed by Richard Quine, with Rod Taylor and Karl Malden but with little success.
Loves
From her first husband, Capucci she had a daughter, Sabrina, with whom she always had a complicated relationship. She said: "They took my daughter from me, the judge maintained that the mother, that is to say I, being an actress, was of dubious morality. So the little girl would stay with her paternal grandmother. They destroyed the lives of both of us".
Then from 1972 to 1979 she was married to Johnny Dorelli and had a son, Gabriele. The third husband, Daniel Rey, arrived in 1993 and would be her last until 2010. In 2013 she married Vladimiro Tuselli, a relationship that lasted until 2020.