RIP Virna Lisi

Italian actress Virna Lisi who played memorable roles in European and Hollywood films including 1965 comedy classic “How To Murder Your Wife,” with Jack Lemmon, in which she famously pops out of wedding cake wearing a bikini, and also a masterfully maleficent queen in Patrice Chereau’s “La Reine Margot,” died in Rome on December 18th 2014. She was 78. Born in Ancona, Italy in 1936 as Virna Pieralisi, she began her film career as a teenager in 1953, initially thanks to her stunning looks. Her increasingly important parts in Italian postwar pics include 1957 drama “La Donna Del Giorno,” 1963 crimer “Il Delitto” Dupre, with Alain Delon, and Mario Monicelli’s 1965 Italo comedy classic “Casanova ’70’,” in which she co-starred with Marcello Mastroianni. She appeared as Sister Evangelina in “White Fang” (1973) and “Challenge to White Fang” (1974).