Monica Bellucci facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Monica Bellucci
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Bellucci in 2024
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Monica Anna Maria Bellucci
30 September 1964 Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy
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| Height | 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in) |
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| Partner(s) | Tim Burton (2023–present) |
| Children | 2 (including Deva Cassel) |
| Awards | Full list |
Monica Anna Maria Bellucci (born 30 September 1964) is an Italian actress and model. She began her career as a fashion model before transitioning to Italian and later American and French films.
In 2018, Forbes Italy named her one of the 100 most successful Italian women.
Contents
Early life
Monica Anna Maria Bellucci was born in Città di Castello, Umbria, on 30 September 1964. Her father, Pasquale Bellucci, owned a trucking company. Her mother, Brunella Briganti, was a housewife and amateur painter. She is their only child, as her parents did not want another one. Bellucci grew up in Selci-Lama, in the comune (municipality) of San Giustino, on the banks of the Tiber.
Bellucci received a Catholic education. She was known to be an "intelligent child". Bellucci was introduced to modelling at age 13 by posing for a photographer friend of the family in Città di Castello. Her parents described her as "discreet" and "aware of her advantageous physique", with a growing interest in fashion. She was distant from other children her age, regularly making detours to get home after school and not spending time with them around the comune's public space, with her father recalling that she complained that everyone stared at her. By then, her father had helped her to gain self-confidence.
Later, while hitchhiking, she met a hairdresser from Città di Castello named Piero Montanucci, who persuaded her to become his model. Bellucci, a student at the Liceo classico, attracted attention wherever they went, and her innate ability to impose herself visually was perceived. "Modelling came to me naturally, and I loved pictures. I loved the world of image", she said. She studied philosophy, literature, Latin and Greek. A taste for cinema would not cease to animate Bellucci, watching Italian films by Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, and also by Marcel Carné and Jean-Luc Godard. Bellucci has said that her personality is largely due to her upbringing: "Certainly a lot of positivity also depends on the climate in which my parents raised me."
Modelling career
Bellucci, then 16, was asked to do photographic sessions by her father's friend, the director of a fashion agency. She later stated that she made her modelling debut at age 16, which led her to frequently travel to Milan and Paris while continuing her studies at Città di Castello.
While in high school, her father's friend allowed her to debut on the runway during a fashion show in Florence and a second in Milan. She would then begin doing three fashion shows a year, culminating in becoming a professional model at age 18.
Bellucci, who planned to become a lawyer, studied at the University of Perugia. She financed her studies by working as a model.
She appeared in numerous international advertising campaigns, and Dolce & Gabbana recruited her to become its muse. In 1989, she lived in New York and was already a dollar millionaire.
In 1990, Bellucci lent her image and name to the Haute Couture line of the French luxury house Dior. Photographed by Richard Avedon, she became the "protagonist" of the Dolce & Gabbana campaigns, "which elevated her to an icon of Mediterranean beauty".
Bellucci opted to follow her passion for cinema, turned to acting and stopped modelling full-time. She remained active within the industry.
Throughout the decades, she appeared on national and international covers of Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, Vanity Fair, and Vogue, among others.
Acting career
Bellucci made her acting debut in the Italian television miniseries Vita coi figli (1991). She went on to play one of Dracula's brides in the horror film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) and then enrolled in acting classes. After appearing in Italian productions, she had her breakthrough role in the arthouse film The Apartment (1996), for which she received a César Award nomination for Most Promising Actress. Bellucci came to the attention of American audiences in Under Suspicion (2000) and gained greater international recognition as Malèna Scordia in Malèna (2000), a defining moment in her career. Bellucci starred in the period drama Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) and the comedy film Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra (2002).
Bellucci was praised for portraying Mary Magdalene in the drama The Passion of the Christ (2004). She acted in various films, including The Whistleblower (2010), The Ages of Love (2011), and The Wonders (2014). Her role in Ville-Marie (2015) earned her the Dublin Film Critics' Circle Award for Best Actress. At the age of 50, by appearing in the James Bond film Spectre (2015), Bellucci became the oldest Bond girl in the history of the franchise. She continued her career as a multilingual international actress, playing in films such as On the Milky Road (2016) and The Man Who Sold His Skin (2020).
Her television appearances include the series Mozart in the Jungle (2016) and the original French version Dix pour cent (2018). Bellucci made her stage debut in 2019, initiating a long series of interpretations of the Letters and Memoirs of Maria Callas.
Bellucci starred alongside her second husband, Vincent Cassel, in an on-screen partnership that spanned ten years.
In 2020, Bellucci starred in the role of Soraya in the Oscar-nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin, directed by Kaouther Ben Hania. She also played Delores in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024).
Among her accolades are two Globo d'oro Awards, two Nastro d'Argento Awards, a Donostia Award, and a David Special Award. Bellucci received the knight insignias of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2006 and of the Legion of Honour in 2016. She represents Italy as a permanent member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Other activities
Film industries
Bellucci was mistress of ceremonies at the 56th Cannes Film Festival, presiding over the opening and closing ceremonies held on the Croisette from 14 to 25 May 2003. From 17 to 28 May 2006, she was a jury member at the 59th Cannes Film Festival. She returned to her role of mistress of ceremonies at the 70th Cannes Film Festival, in charge of opening and closing one of the major international film events, which took place from 17 to 28 May 2017. In 2017, Bellucci was invited by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be a permanent member representing Italy, becoming one of the voting juries responsible for awarding the annual Academy Awards (Oscars). From 26 to 30 September 2018, she chaired the judging panel of the 29th Dinard British Film Festival. Bellucci was to be chairwoman of the 15th Crystal Globe Awards, scheduled for 14 March 2020 at the Wagram auditorium in Paris, but the ceremony was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Charities and patronages
In 2008, Bellucci supported a fundraising campaign in favour of a centre for children with cancer located in Prima Porta. It was initiated by the Associazione Genitori Oncologia Pediatrica (Association of Parents in Pediatric Oncology), also known as AGOP, created by parents of children with cancer and leukemia at the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome. In 2010, Bellucci became patron of Paroles de Femmes (Words of Women), an apolitical and secular French association promoting equality between men and women in society. In March 2010, she organised the Nuit des Femmes (Women's Night), bringing together female politicians, researchers, doctors, lawyers, writers, painters, and business leaders to assess the evolution of women's rights in France. The funds raised went to construct centres for accommodation, reintegration and support for single mothers in precarious situations. In 2010, Rizzoli and La Martinière Groupe published a book prefaced by Tornatore retracing Bellucci's modelling and acting careers through photos taken by photographers such as Peter Lindbergh and Helmut Newton. All proceeds from the book's sales were donated to AGOP and Words of Women. She is also a patron of the SOS Autism France association.
Foreign relations of Italy
Bellucci is regarded in France as an ambassador of Italy. She has been involved in state dinners chaired by the president of the French Republic and organised as part of foreign heads of state visits. On 21 November 2012, Bellucci attended the state dinner hosted by French President François Hollande at the Elysée Palace in Paris on the occasion of the visit of Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and his ministers. On 5 July 2021, she was invited to a state dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysée Palace in honour of Italian President Sergio Mattarella and his daughter Laura.
Personal life
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Bellucci's first marriage was with Italian photographer Claudio Carlos Basso. In a 2006 interview, Bellucci said she met Basso in 1987 when he recruited her for a photo shoot. She was 23, and he was five years older. They married on 3 January 1990 in Monte-Carlo. They divorced a year later.
Bellucci was in a relationship with Italian actor Nicola Farron for several years. The couple separated in 1995.
Bellucci and French actor Vincent Cassel met in 1995 on the set of their film The Apartment. They married on 2 August 1999 in Monaco. Bellucci and Cassel have two daughters, Deva (born 12 September 2004) and Léonie (born 21 May 2010). Their daughters were born in Rome. La Presse wrote that Bellucci and Cassel formed "on stage as in the city one of the most famous and solid couples of European cinema". The couple acted in nine films together between 1996 and 2006. In March 2013, Bellucci reflected on the evolution of their marriage when the two often lived separately in Italy, France, Brazil and England. The couple's separation by "mutual agreement" was announced on 26 August 2013. They later divorced.
After her divorce, Bellucci was in a relationship with French sculptor and former model Nicolas Lefebvre. They had been dating since 2017. Lefebvre, then aged 36, and Bellucci made it "official" in early March 2019 during a Chanel show at the Grand Palais in Paris. She told Italian magazine F about the end of their relationship, which was reported by other media in early July 2019.
In February 2023, Paris Match reported that Bellucci and American filmmaker Tim Burton were a couple, a relationship originating in October 2022. In June 2023, she confirmed her relationship with Burton. They made their first public appearance at the Rome Film Festival in October 2023.
Besides the Italian language, Bellucci is fluent in French and English and proficient in Portuguese and Spanish. After her divorce from Cassel, Bellucci lived with her daughters in England, France and Italy. By 2015, she decided to reside in France. Bellucci said, however, that "I am entirely Italian. Everything about me is Italian" and acknowledged that "Paris is part of my history". Bellucci said she votes in Italy, not France. She does not have French nationality. She owns houses in Rome and Lisbon, and in 2023, she purchased a villa on the Greek island of Paros.
Bellucci has emphasised that she has moved away from her religious roots: "I come from a Catholic religion, but I'm not Catholic". She has called herself an agnostic.
In 2018, Forbes valued Bellucci's wealth at $45 million, ranking her as the third richest of Italian actors and actresses.
Acting credits and accolades
Bellucci has developed her acting career by alternating low-budget arthouse and auteur films with big-budget blockbusters within the European and American industries. The Belgian André Delvaux Academy remarked that her unorthodox filmography made her "unclassifiable". Her roles are occasionally extremes, generally of "variable geometry" and "fit Bellucci like a glove".
Bellucci received honours from the French and Italian governments. In 2006, French Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy conferred her with the knight insignia of the Order of Arts and Letters. In 2016, French President François Hollande presented her with the knight insignia in the National Order of the Legion of Honour at the Elysée Palace. In 2020, Mayor Dario Nardella awarded Bellucci the Key to the City of Florence.
Bellucci won the Nastro d'Argento Award for Protagonist of the Year in Documentaries 2024 for her interpretation of Callas in Letters and Memoirs.
Images for kids
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Bellucci and film director Alain Chabat at the 2001 César Awards
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Bellucci at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival
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Bellucci at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival
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Bellucci in 2018
See also
In Spanish: Monica Bellucci para niños
