Luisa Ferida

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Luisa Ferida
Born	Luisa Manfrini Farnet (1914-03-18)18 March 1914 Castel San Pietro Terme, Bologna, Kingdom of Italy
Died	30 April 1945(1945-04-30) (aged 31) Milan, Kingdom of Italy
Cause of death	Execution by firing squad
Occupation	Actress

Luisa Ferida, real surname Manfrini (18 March 1914 – 30 April 1945), was an Italian stage and film actress. She was one of divas in Italian cinema during decade 1935–1945 and she was the highest paid movie star of that period.^[1] The actress was famous as a films diva and she is remembered for her tragic death; in fact during the period of anti-fascist vendettas, immediately after Italian Civil War, she was assassinated, as was later proved by the Milan Court of Appeal, by shooting following a summary trial carried out by some partisans: she was shot with her lover, the actor and member of Decima Flottiglia MAS Osvaldo Valenti, as accused of alleged and hypothetical participation in war crimes and torture in connection with so-called Koch gang, facts of which she was then deemed innocent after the war. Therefore a war pension was allocated to the mother, who had no other source of income.^[2]

Career[edit]

Born Luisa Manfrini Farnet in Castel San Pietro Terme, near Bologna, Ferida started as a stage actress. In 1935 she made her first appearance in film with a supporting role in La Freccia d'oro. Because of her photogenic looks and talent as an actress, she soon graduated to leading roles by the end of the 1930s.

In 1939, while working on Un Avventura di Salvator Rosa (1940), directed by Alessandro Blasetti, she met the actor Osvaldo Valenti. The pair became romantically involved and had a son.

Death[edit]

Valenti had been linked with many Fascist officials and personalities for years and he eventually joined the Italian Social Republic, and for this reasons he was on the partisans' hit list. He was finally arrested in Milan, alongside a pregnant Ferida in April 1945. They were both sentenced to be executed and shot immediately in the street, without any proper trial by partisans. The partisan chief who organized the execution, Giuseppe "Vero" Marozin, during a trial by Milano's tribunal, defended himself declaring that the partisan leader who by telephone ordered the two actors to be executed was Sandro Pertini, who during the year 1978 became president of the Italian republic: this version is confirmed by Treccani.^[3] Few sources affirm the crime is attributed solely to Marozin.

Cultural references[edit]

The film Sanguepazzo starring Luca Zingaretti and Monica Bellucci discusses Luisa Ferida's relationship with Osvaldo Valenti. The film premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.^[4]

Ferida is briefly mentioned in Natalia Ginzburg's 1969 autobiographical novel-cum-memoir, Family Lexicon (Lessico Famigliare), during a description of the wartime experience of Lisetta, a minor character, who had "been interrogated by Ferida" while imprisoned the Villa Triste after being arrested as part of the Italian resistance during World War II. The Villa Triste ("Sad Villa") was a house in Milan that served as the headquarters of Pietro Koch, the leader of the fascist anti-partisan gang of which Ferida and Valenti were members.^[5]

Partial filmography[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Luisa Ferida at IMDb
• Luisa Ferida at Find a Grave