We continue and finish our list of most popular people in Italy during 2009. Musicians, politicians and artists that we cannot forget. To read part I click here.
7. Monica Bellucci
In 2009 the dating site Meetic.it found that 14.6% of Italian men interviewed thought that Monica Bellucci would be their ideal fiancée. Sabrina Ferilli and Giovanna Mezzogiorno were placed fourth and fifth, whilst Angelina Jolie was in sixth place. You really cannot beat “Made in Italy”!
Monica Bellucci, 46, is a competent linguist and her credits include “Malèna”, “Tears of the Sun”, “The Matrix Reloaded”, “The Passion of Christ”, “The Brothers Grimm” and “Baarìa”. In 2004, whilst pregnant with her daughter, Deva, she famously posed nude for Italian “Vanity Fair” magazine in protest at Italian laws preventing the use of donor sperm. Miss Bellucci is married to the French actor Vincent Cassel and is expecting a baby girl in July.
Read more about You can't beat "Made in Italy".
8. Giorgio Armani
It was Giorgio Armani who stole Milan Fashion Week in September with his bright, extraordinary creations. As always, his women’s collection was feminine and sophisticated, although it included geometric shapes and patterns. Thanks to stiff fabrics for dresses and jewel-like hues, Armani’s pieces looked precious and elegant. And guess what? This time there was no beige!
The fashion house had a less happy October, though, with the animal rights group Peta holding demonstrations outside its Milan flagship store Emporio Armani because, they claimed, the company was using fur in its collections. The Armani Group said that it used only fur from rabbits already destined for the food trade but Peta began lobbying celebrities who wear Armani to put pressure on the company to stop using fur altogether.
Later in October Giorgio Armani was nominated as a senatore a vita [life senator] by Santo Versace, who said that the designer “embodies the beauty of Italy, the country the way we would all like to see it represented around the world, and where meritocracy is fully applied.”
Recently there have been concerns about 75-year-old Armani’s health as a bout of hepatitis appears to have left him frail. The world of fashion is asking itself who will inherit Armani’s empire but Armani has refused to publicly commit himself on this matter, saying, in Moscow in October, “I don’t look bad yet, do I?” .
Read more about Milan's Fashion Week.
Armani on Amazon UK.
Armani on Amazon US.
9. Madonna and D&G
Madonna has caused a sensation as the face of Dolce & Gabbana’s Spring / Summer 2010 Collection and, in pictures released in December in Italian “Vanity Fair”, she is washing dishes, preparing food and eating spaghetti with her hands. The photos, in black and white, were inspired by actress Anna Magnani, who was famous for playing “passionate, earthy women”.
Perhaps it was these qualities that Stefano Gabbana and Domenico Dolce sought in Madonna. The designer duo have a reputation for making women look “incredibly sexy” and most commenters agree that they have achieved this again with the Madonna pictures.
“The charm of southern Italian ladies” inspired D&G’s roomy “Miss Sicily” bag for winter 2009 and spring 2010 and Madonna has been pictured in her “real” life carrying one of these, as have Victoria Beckham and Margaret Madè, the star of “Baarìa”.
Earlier in the year, at Milan Fashion Week, D&G led with the denim look for their “young line”, teaming it with fringed cowboy boots – hardly ideal footwear for an Italian summer, but doesn’t every woman know she has to suffer to look fashionable?
Read more about Milan's Fashion Week.
D&G on Amazon UK.
D&G on Amazon US.
10. Canalis and Clooney
Burton and Taylor, Gable and Lombard, Jolie and Pitt: all the world loves a lover and particularly, it seems, a celebrity lover. And so it was that the world went crazy when the “thinking woman’s Prince Charming”, George Clooney fell for Italian model and showgirl Elisabetta Canalis. Everywhere they went, they were described as “the summer couple” and everywhere they went, of course, the paparazzi went too.
There were rumours that the couple would marry by Christmas and we were all hoping for an Italian wedding but instead, they hotfooted it to Miami where, in a heavily guarded Ocean drive villa belonging to a friend of Clooney’s, they celebrated Christmas in Italian style.
Watch this space for what happens next!
Read more about George Clooney and Elisabetta Canalis.
George Clooney on Amazon UK.
George Clooney on Amazon US.
11. Ramazzotti and Bocelli
Singing star Eros Ramazzotti began a world tour in October with a concert in Rimini attended by 7,000 fans. The “Ali e Radici” [Wings and Roots] tour, also the title of the artist’s latest bestselling CD, consists of 72 events in all and will take place in locations as diverse as Barcelona, Aalborg [Denmark], Berlin, Milan and Liege [Latvia] in 2010.
To date, Ramazzotti has sold over 50 million records. “Ali e Radici”, which he co-produced and co-wrote, is his eleventh studio album and appears after a four-year gap, apart from his popular compilation CD. The first single from the album to have been released is “Parla con me”.
Best loved for his romantic songs, in 2008 Ramazzotti was awarded the National American Italian Foundation Award for his efforts in promoting a positive Italian image abroad.
Read more about Eros Ramazzotti.
Eros Ramazzotti on Amazon UK.
Eros Ramazzotti on Amazon US.
Andrea Bocelli, the only singer likely to succeed Pavarotti in Italians’ affections, released his only Christmas album in 2009 and to date the “My Christmas” CD has sold over five million copies. It was just beaten in the US charts by Susan Boyle’s “I Dreamed a Dream” as the bestselling Christmas album. Among the tracks are “White Christmas” [sung in English and Italian] “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, “O Tannenbaum” and Bocelli’s own favourite Christmas song, “Tu scendi dalle stelle”.
Bocelli, who holds the Grande Ufficiale OMRI for “merit acquired by the nation” , Italy’s highest honour, sang for the Abruzzi earthquake victims with Angela Gheorgiou at the Colosseum at the end of May. This was the first classical concert ever held at the Colosseum and it ended emotionally with Bocelli singing “Nessun Dorma”. The audience had paid 1,000 euros per ticket and the proceeds are to be used for the rebuilding of L’Aquila’s Music Conservatory.
Read more about Andrea Bocelli.
Andrea Bocelli on Amazon UK.
Andrea Bocelli on Amazon US.
12. Giuseppe Tornatore and Raul Bova
If you take a look at the “Web Important People” list for Sicily you will see that the name at the top of it is that of Giuseppe Tornatore, filmmaker. Famous, above all, for “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso”, Tornatore is also the director of “ The Legend of 1900” , “Malèna” and, in 2009, “Baarìa”. Baarìa is Sicilian dialect for Bagheria, the town near Palermo where Tornatore was born and in the film he recreates the town and townsfolk of his childhood. A monumental work, the film can be seen as a history not only of Bagheria but of Sicily itself from 1910 to the present day. Shot mostly in Tunisia, where the Bagheria of the 1960s had been so painstakingly reconstructed that Tornatore’s mother started moving all the furniture in “her” film house into the “right” positions, “Baarìa” tells the story of three generations of a family based on Tornatore’s. It is a story of ordinary people who espouse left-wing politics because they see it as the only way to improve their lives. “It’s a history of simple people – history with a small ‘h’”, explains Tornatore.
The film cost just over 20 million euros, features 230 actors, 20,000 extras [or 35,000 according to some sources] and took 25 weeks to shoot. It made a star of Margareth Madè and many famous Italian actors have cameo roles. The film was chosen to inaugurate the 2009 Venice Film Festival. So you would imagine, would you not, that everyone in Italy was proud and that Tornatore was honoured and praised?
Instead, a political row broke out when Giancarlo Galan, the President of the Veneto Region said, after the Venice screening, that the film had bored him to tears because “Nothing happens until the end”. He also criticised the amount of money spent on the project, accusing the Sicilian Region of investing public money in the film.
The President of the Sicilian Region, Raffaele Lombardo, then defended both the film and his Region, accusing Galan of having "a phobia about anything produced south of the River Po". Tornatore was even criticised in Sicily, where over 1,000 Sicilians were employed as extras, for not shooting the film there, for overuse of dialect and for avoiding the issue of the Mafia. Nevertheless, “Baarìa” represents Italy’s Oscar hopes and we wish it well.
Read more about Giuseppe Tornatore.
Giuseppe Tornatore on Amazon UK.
Giuseppe Tornatore on Amazon US.
One of the stars of “Baarìa” is Raul Bova who, in a Meetic.it poll, knocked George Clooney into second place when women were asked who they would like as a fiancé. A former swimming champion, Bova did his military service in the Bersaglieri corps. His first acting role was in the TV film “Una storia italiana” and he made his cinema debut in “Piccolo Grande Amore”. Idolised by women because of his physique and grey-green eyes, he began to seek more complex parts to prove himself a serious actor. He played a terrorist in “Rewind”, Saint Francis in “Francesco” [a role for which he lost 14 kilos] and played the introverted Lorenzo in the psychological drama, “La Finestra di Fronte” [“Facing Windows”].
Read more about Raoul Bova.
Raoul Bova on Amazon UK.
Raoul Bova on Amazon US.
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We cannot end without mentioning that great lady, Sofia Loren, 75 last year, still looking fabulous and an inspiration to all women of “a certain age”!
Read more about Sophia Loren.
Sophia Loren on Amazon UK.
Sophia Loren on Amazon US.
Our list of most popular people in Italy during 2009 ended. To read part I click here.
