Una, None, One Hundred Thousand Milena Vukotic! The great actress (89 years old) who lived through the best years of Italian and foreign cinema, received a worthy tribute. During the 69th edition of the David di Donatello he received the most prestigious award for an Italian actor: the Lifetime Achievement Award.
«When they told me that I would receive this award, I thought of everything I could say to express how great I was emotion. The most spontaneous thing, immediately, was the gratitudenot only towards the Film Academy, but towards lifewho sometimes gives us some exceptional gifts. I wanted to dedicate this gift to my mother and father who have always made me live my dream, that of being able to express myself with words and dance”, said the actress, moved, receiving the award and deserving a standing ovation.
«I also wanted to dedicate it to Alfredo Baldi, my husband, who is also one film historian and every day we share the great love for this art. I can only turn my thoughts to Federico Fellini, which in this study yielded immortal Italian cinema”.
«It doesn’t bother me that they call me “Pina” (Fantozzi’s wife, ed)», he added, «because being loved never bothers».
With a shy character, Sometimes shy, in recent interviews he declared himself very excited at the idea of receiving this coveted recognition. «How am I preparing for the preparation ceremony? I don’t prepare myself, I don’t understand anything anymore; I’m doing a show and it seems so fantastic…”
Milena Vukotic: precocious talent and love for dance
The surname of Montenegrin origins should not be misleading: Milena Vukotic is very Italian. Born in Rome in 1935, she traveled throughout Europe from an early age for the work of her father, a diplomat and writer, great theater lover and friend of Luigi Pirandello.
In such a stimulating family environment, he developed an early artistic streak, as well as an unusual talent as a polyglot: he speaks 5 languages. After her grandmother and her pianist mother, she also studies the piano with profit but she is dance was his first love: joins the Paris Opera ballet with the choreographer Roland Petit and then the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas.
Federico Fellini and cinema
Although she loved the theater, the future actress did not immediately fall in love with the big screen. A single film changes her mind and life: The street by Federico Fellini. Speaking of this visual shock, she says: «I left the cinema with my soul turned upside down and the evocative joy of having entered that fairytale world. Since then a conviction took root in me. I wanted to work with him”
Debuts in The hitman by Damiano Damiani in 1960 and, two years later, she finally manages to meet her myth who offers her a very small part in Boccaccio ’70 (in The temptations of Doctor Antonio). Subsequently, it finds space – never in the foreground – in Juliet of the Spirits and finally Toby Dammitt, episode of the collective film Three Steps into delirium.
A beautiful and solid friendship is born with Giulietta Masina and Federico Felliniwhich lasted until the death of the great director, adorned with profoundly light speeches and an identical love for artistic freedom.
Muse for Buñuel and for many talented directors
His multifaceted talent conquers great directors such as Lina Wertmüller, Ettore Scola, Franco Zeffirelli, Bernardo Bertolucci. In the early 70s comes the consecration with the master Luis Buñuel: she becomes his muse in The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie, The ghost of freedom, That dark object of desire.
His surrealist cinema brings the unusual charisma of the actress an ideal home where she can fully express her restrained skill, in which to shine despite the roles being far from his personality. Speaking of the Spanish director, the actress recalls a curious episode: «One night I dreamed that Buñuel placed the following dedication on the book: “We are all free men”» Once again, freedom is the common thread that connects her to art and its kindred spirits.
Popularity with My friends next to Ugo Tognazzi
From an actress in sophisticated arthouse dramas, Milena Vukotic moves with ease to unusual roles in comedies of a more popular nature as My friends And My Friends act IIwhich gave her great public success. It’s impossible not to remember her in the unfortunate guise of Alice Mascettidevoted and neglected wife of the terrible Count Lello Mascetti (Ugo Tognazzi) with whom she had already worked in Come and get it coffee… with us (Alberto Lattuada, 1970).
He gives his gray character a painful humanity that contrasts with the petty the charlatanism of the male protagonists enhances their irreverent aspect, saving them from caricature-like excesses.
Paolo Villaggio and Milena Vukotic in “Fantozzi to the rescue”. (Getty Images)
Pina Fantozzi and her friendship with Paolo Villaggio
The connection with the perfect characterization of Pina Fantozziwife of the infamous Ugo Fantozzi, it is still indissoluble today. Only an actress of great talent and strength of character could have interpreted this dull and modest figure of a woman with rare mastery.
For this role, she didn’t let herself be swallowed up by a comfortable stereotype but imagined it as having the same substance as a cartoon. Despite being the character everyone associates her with, she is also fond of him because of the memories that link her with Paolo Villaggio. He said of him: «When I think of him I can’t forget our friendship. Which I had the honor of carrying forward for years. Paolo was a man of rare sense of humor”
Private life: age, work, a husband and only one regret
His career is not affected by any remorse and work is, still today, the engine that gives her drive and energy to live day after day. Alongside this lively actress, whose 89 years old they are just dry and mere numbers, there is a beloved husband and by whom she is loved in return, the film historian Alfredo Baldi.
After a long courtship, which began in the 1980s, the couple got married in 2003. Despite the regret for having given up on children Due to her demanding work, Milena Vukotic lives the role of mother in other ways, such as the special bond that unites her with her partner’s children.
At “Dancing with the Stars”, Milena Vukotic and her husband Alfredo Baldi. (Getty Images)
An erroneous prophecy and…Playboy!
Her unconventional beauty was never an obstacle but it caused unsolicited advice. During an audition, the well-known director Renato Castellani addressed her thus: «To make films you either have to be beautiful like Lollobrigida or charismatic like Magnani. You are neither of those things.” Never has a prophecy been so wrong.
Chasing his free spirit, in the 1970s he posed for a magazine photo shoot Playboy. Obviously, in his way: artistic photographs among works by Gustav Klimt accompanied by an examination of beauty written by a great director, Alessandro Blasetti.
Milena Vukotic and Simone Di Pasquale, couple competing in “Dancing With the Stars” (Massimo Insabato/Massimo Insabato Archive/Mondadori via Getty Images)
Walking with Daisy, A doctor in the family And dancing with the Stars
The theater is still today a magical place where one expresses oneself at its best. After having performed on stage with Strehler, Zeffirelli, Missiroli and Paolo Poli, she tried her hand at the theatrical adaptation of the film Walking with Daisy and is now on stage with So it is (if you like) by Luigi Pirandello.
The lasting television success of Un Doctor in the Family alongside Lino Banfi and the brilliant participation in 2019 in the popular show Dancing with the Starsonce again attest to his talented eclecticism and the love of his large audience.
A splendid confirmation for an actress who deserves every success and who lives with the lightness and irony of the wise: «After all, I find myself more comfortable in the surreal than in the real».
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