SANSON, YVONNE

(1926-2003)

Actress. Greek-born Sanson moved to Italy in her teens in order to study but within a few years had embarked on a career in films. After a small part in Giuseppe Maria Scotese'sLa grande aurora(The Great Dawn, 1946), she played her first major role as the mistress-become-wife inAlberto Lattuada'sII delitto di Giovanni Episcopo(Flesh Will Surrender, 1947). She then achieved an extraordinary popularity as the female lead in a series of hugely successful melodramas directed byRaffaello Matarazzo, beginning withCatene(Chains, 1949) and continuing withFigli di Nessuno(Nobody's Children, 1951),Chi e senza peccato(Whomever Is without Sin, 1952),Angelo Bianco(The White Angel, 1955), andMalinconico autunno(Melancholic Autumn, 1959), in all of which she was paired with male heartthrobAmedeo Nazzari. She also acquitted herself well in supporting roles in films such as Lattuada'sIl cappotto(The Overcoat, 1952),Mario Camerini'sLa bella mugnaia(The Miller's Beautiful Wife, 1955) and Rene Clement'sLa diga sul Pacifico(This Angry Age, 1956). By the beginning of the 1960s, however, her career was in decline. She appeared as Olga Manfredi,Vittorio Gassman's faded ex-lover, inRoberto Rossellini'sAnima nera(Black Soul, 1962) but subsequently made few other films untilBernardo Bertolucci, perhaps in homage to her earlier popularity, cast her as Giulia's petit bourgeois mother inIl conformista(The Conformist, 1970).