Laura Betti: Movies & Box Office

Laura Betti (born Laura Trombetti on 1 May 1934 in Casalecchio di Reno, near Bologna) began her artistic journey as a jazz singer, captivating Roman nightclubs before stepping onto the silver screen. Her film debut came in Federico Fellini’s seminal La Dolce Vita (1960), instantly marking her as a bold presence capable of inhabiting the most unconventional characters. Over the next decade she forged a close friendship with poet‑filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, appearing in seven of his controversial works, from the eerie servitude of Emilia in Teorema (1968) – a performance that earned her the prestigious Volpi Cup for Best Actress – to the daring role of the Wife of Bath in his 1972 adaptation of The Canterbury Tales. Betti’s screen persona thrived on the grotesque and the manic, embodying figures such as Regina, the fascist tyrant in Bernardo Bertolucci’s epic 1900, and the unsettling medium Anna in Twitch of the Death Nerve; she even supplied the Italian voice of the Devil in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973).