Franca Valeri to get special David

(ANSA) - Rome, May 5 - Veteran comic actress Franca Valeri will receive a special David di Donatello award at the 65th annual edition of Italy's Oscars on Friday, the Italian film academy said Tuesday. Valeri, who turns 100 on July 31, will receive the career award at the ceremony hosted by Carlo Conti and broadcast live by RAI state TV from 21:25 May 8, said academy president and artistic director Piera Detassis. Born in Milan as Alma Franca Maria Norsa, a Jew, she was able to survive the Holocaust in Milan with her non-Jewish mother due to a fake I.D. which purported that she was the illegitimate daughter of a gentleman from Pavia. Her father and brother were able to flee to Switzerland.
    Norsa adopted the surname Valeri in the 1950s as an homage to French critic and poet Paul Valéry.
    Valeri started her career on the radio, where she created the characters of Signorina Cesira and Signora Cecioni.
    She went on to become one of Italy's favourite comic actresses in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. She co-starred in such iconic films as The Sign of Venus (1955) and Il vedovo, perhaps her most popular role, alongside a bumbling Alberto Sordi.
    Some of her other film roles were in: Luci del varietà (1951), The Two Sergeants (1951), Totò in Color (1952), Solo per te Lucia (1952), Villa Borghese (1953), Questi fantasmi (1954) Le signorine dello 04 (1955), Piccola posta (1955), Il bigamo (1956), Un eroe dei nostri tempi (1957), Mariti in città (1957), La ragazza del palio (1958), Non perdiamo la testa (1959), Il moralista (1959), Arrangiatevi! (1959), Rocco and His Brothers (1960), Mariti in pericolo (1960), Crimen (1960), Leoni al sole (1961), I motorizzati (1962), Parigi o cara (1962), Le motorizzate (1963) The Shortest Day (1963), Gli onorevoli (1963), I cuori infranti (1963), I maniaci (1964), Io, io, io... e gli altri (1966), La ragazza del bersagliere (1967), Scusi, facciamo l'amore? (1968), Basta guardarla (1970), Nel giorno del Signore (1970), Ettore lo fusto (1972), Ultimo tango a Zagarolo (1974), La signora gioca bene a scopa? (1974), L'Italia s'è rotta (1976), Come ti rapisco il pupo (1976), La Bidonata (1977), Grazie tante - Arrivederci (1977), Tanto va la gatta al lardo... (1978), It's Not Me, It's Him (1980), Un amore in prima classe (1980), Non ti riconosco più amore (1980), Paulo Roberto Cotechiño centravanti di sfondamento (1983), Tosca e le altre due (2003), and Alberto il grande (2013), playing herself in a Sordi bio.
    In the 1960s Valeri also frequently worked for Italian TV. During the 2005-2006 theatrical season, she performed her own monologue, La Vedova di Socrate ("Socrate's Widow"), and Les Bonnes, by Jean Genet. In January 2008, she played the role of Solange in Les Bonnes at Milan's Piccolo Teatro.