Veronica Lazăr

Veronica Lazăr

Born: October 6, 1938
Died: May 8, 2014
in Bucharest, Romania
Veronica Lazăr (6 October 1938 – 8 June 2014) was a Romanian-born Italian actress.

Lazăr was born in Bucharest in 1938. She graduated from the Caragiale Academy of Theatrical Arts and Cinematography (where she also obtained a degree in psychology, which she practiced until 1994, dealing mainly in couples therapy) and subsequently played roles in Romanian theatre [notably a run of Right You Are (if you think so) in 1963-64]. She fled her home country to escape communism and eventually settled in Italy in 1965. She managed to learn the Italian language in only a few weeks and had planned to move on to the United States or Israel, but became entranced with Rome. There, she met and married Italian actor Adolfo Celi with whom she had two children, director Leonardo Celi and actress Alessandra Celi.

She made her screen debut as Marlon Brando's deceased wife in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (1972), and also appeared in some of the director's subsequent films, La Luna (1979), The Sheltering Sky (1990), and Besieged (1998).

Lazăr is probably best known internationally for her role as the demonic Mater Tenebrarum in Dario Argento's Inferno (1980), as well as the ill-fated Martha in Lucio Fulci's The Beyond (1981). She later appeared in Argento's The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) in a role that was removed from the North American version (though she is still billed in the end credits). Her other films included Michelangelo Antonioni's Identification of a Woman (1982), My Sister and I (1987), Towards Evening (1990), The Prince's Manuscript (2000) and Ginostra (2002). She had an extensive career in (mostly) Italian television, where she was often the lead or one of the lead characters. Lazăr headlined the 1978 adaptation of The Elective Affinities, Giacinta (1980) and was a big part of the 1989 BBC miniseries Summer's Lease. Her last role was that of the main character Lorenzo's loving grandmother in Bertolucci's Me and You (2012).

Veronica Lazăr was a renowned woman of culture and a cultural ambassador between Italian and Romanian cinema (the latter, a position she began in 1989). She was a linguistic interpreter and was seen as a symbolic figure with a protective aura by her countrymen in both Italy and Romania. She was also president of the Itaro Art Foundation and was instrumental in its 2007 retrospective on Romanian cinema held in Rome and Pisa. She was heavily involved with the acting students at Teatro Valle and often would cook meals for them at her home and bring them to the theatre. The students there nicknamed her "Nonna Veronica."

Lazăr also coordinated the construction of a hospital in Mali over the course of a year, on orders of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When she returned to Italy, she brought with her African fabrics, statues, and carpets, many of which were still in her home when she died. Lazăr loved to play cards, share with her friends, and had a special affinity for the sea. At her funeral, she wanted her 18-year-old niece, a career musician already, to play the theme from Schindler's List throughout the Jewish cemetery in Prima Porta where she was laid to rest.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Veronica Lazăr, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Movies for Veronica Lazăr...

Leopardi
Title: Leopardi
Character: Marianna Mattei Antici
Released: October 16, 2014
Type: Movie
In 19th-century Italy, Giacomo Leopardi channels his debilitating illness and isolation into poetry.
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Me and You
Title: Me and You
Character: Lorenzo's Grandmother
Released: October 24, 2012
Type: Movie
An introverted teenager tells his parents he is going on a ski trip, but instead spends his time alone in a basement.
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Twins
Title: Twins
Character: Muriel
Released: March 14, 2012
Type: Movie
Angela Wyler asks police chief Valerio Strada to find Christine, her twin who she hasn't heard in two years and who had a stormy relationship with the officer years back.
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Title: 6 passi nel giallo
Character: Muriel
Released: February 22, 2012
Type: TV
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Paura: Lucio Fulci Remembered - Volume 1
Title: Paura: Lucio Fulci Remembered - Volume 1
Character: Self
Released: March 6, 2008
Type: Movie
This documentary examines the life and legacy of controversial Italian filmmaker Lucio Fulci through interviews with his colleagues, each of whom answers the question, "What is your fondest memory of Lucio Fulci?". The responses are as varied as the people who knew the late writer-director, providing a nuanced look at the man behind such gory grindhouse classics as City of the Living Dead and The House by the Cemetery.
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Adolfo Celi, a Man for Two Worlds
Title: Adolfo Celi, a Man for Two Worlds
Character: Self
Released: February 19, 2006
Type: Movie
italian documentary
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Renzo e Lucia
Title: Renzo e Lucia
Released: January 13, 2004
Type: Movie
Loose adaptation of Italy's national epic, Alessandro Manzoni's “The Betrothed”. In war-torn 17th century Italy, shady feudal lord Don Rodrigo eyes young and beautiful Lucia, who loves—and is reciprocated by—commoner Renzo. The two lovers plan to marry in secret, but Rodrigo discovers it and they are forced to flee their village, becoming separated and each facing many dangers, including the Plague.
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Ginostra
Title: Ginostra
Character: Suzanna Del Piero
Released: January 29, 2003
Type: Movie
An FBI Agent from America and his bride and young child travel to the Sicilian island of Ginostra to solve the murder of a key witness.
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The Prince's Manuscript
Title: The Prince's Manuscript
Character: Lilja Iljascenko
Released: March 31, 2000
Type: Movie
The film is a biography of Giuseppe Tomasi (Bouquet), the prince of Lampedusa, who is the author of Il gattopardo, one of the most influential Italian novel of XX century and is adapted on screen by Visconti, THE LEOPARD (1963, 8/10). Directed by Roberto Andò, a native from Palermo, stars two French cinema icons Bouquet and Moreau (as the princess Licy).
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Besieged
Title: Besieged
Character: piano buyer
Released: February 5, 1998
Type: Movie
When an African dictator jails her husband, Shandurai goes into exile in Italy, studying medicine and keeping house for Mr. Kinsky, an eccentric English pianist and composer. She lives in one room of his Roman palazzo. He besieges her with flowers, gifts, and music, declaring passionately that he loves her, would go to Africa with her, would do anything for her. "What do you know of Africa?," she asks, then, in anguish, shouts, "Get my husband out of jail!" The rest of the film plays out the implications of this scene and leaves Shandurai with a choice.
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The Stendhal Syndrome
Title: The Stendhal Syndrome
Character: Madre di Marie
Released: January 26, 1996
Type: Movie
A young policewoman slowly goes insane while tracking down an elusive serial rapist/killer through Italy when she herself becomes a victim of the brutal man's obsession.
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Beyond the Clouds
Title: Beyond the Clouds
Character: Liza
Released: October 27, 1995
Type: Movie
Made of four short tales, linked by a story filmed by Wim Wenders. Taking place in Ferrara, Portofino, Aix en Provence and Paris, each story, which always a woman as the crux of the story, invites to an inner travel, as Antonioni says "towards the true image of that absolute and mysterious reality that nobody will ever see".
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The Blonde
Title: The Blonde
Released: March 12, 1993
Type: Movie
Coming back from work by night, shy watchmaker Tommaso runs over a girl with his car, luckily without serious consequences. Next day he finds her waiting for him at his door. She asks him for help, as she can't remember anything prior to the incident.
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Towards Evening
Title: Towards Evening
Character: Margherita
Released: December 21, 1990
Type: Movie
Italy, 1977. Professor Bruschi is a retired widower who lives according to a strict routine he set for himself. An ardent old-style communist, he has always been at odds with the unconventional lifestyle led by his son and his hippieish girlfriend Stella. When their four-year-old daughter is left in his care out of the blue after the two break up, the old professor becomes a sort of father figure to the girl, growing fond of her. However he's once again challenged when Stella also arrives for a stay in his elegant villa, reclaiming custody of her daughter.
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The Sheltering Sky
Title: The Sheltering Sky
Character: Nun
Released: October 25, 1990
Type: Movie
An American couple drift toward emptiness in postwar North Africa.
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Title: Summer's Lease
Character: Baronessa Dulcibene
Released: November 1, 1989
Type: TV
Molly Pargeter is a forty-something wife and mother of three girls, who leads a stable but dull life in 1980s West London. She feels overweight and there is no passion in her relationship with her husband Hugh, who is secretly seeing another woman. For most of her life she has found escape in detective novels and books on art, especially about the fifteenth century Italian fresco painter Piero Della Francesca. Then in a newspaper's small ads Molly sees the details of a villa in Tuscany, Italy to let and after travelling to Italy to view the villa "La Felicita" she decides to take it for the family's August holiday.
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My Sister and I
Title: My Sister and I
Character: Giudice dei minori
Released: December 19, 1987
Type: Movie
Carlo is a responsible sibling who deals with his black-sheep sister Silvia in this situation comedy. When Silvia returns after many years to attend her mother's funeral, Carlo deals with the fallout caused by her many love affairs. Carlo is convinced to kidnap Silvia's child whom she left in a Hungarian children's home, but she soon abandons Carlo and the baby when she takes up with a British rock star.
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Identification of a Woman
Title: Identification of a Woman
Character: Carla
Released: October 15, 1982
Type: Movie
The movie director Niccolò has just been left by his wife. Subsequently he embarks on an obsessive relationship with a young woman who eventually leaves him and disappears while searching for her, he meets a variety of other willing girls. This gives him the idea of making a movie about women's relationships. He starts to search for a woman who can play the leading part in the movie.
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The Wings of the Dove
Title: The Wings of the Dove
Released: May 6, 1981
Type: Movie
A 20th-century prostitute (Dominique Sanda) arranges for her lover (Michele Placido) to wed a wealthy, dying millionairess (Isabelle Huppert) in Venice.
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The Beyond
Title: The Beyond
Character: Martha
Released: April 29, 1981
Type: Movie
A young woman inherits an old hotel in Louisiana where, following a series of supernatural "accidents", she learns that the building was built over one of the entrances to Hell.
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Inferno
Title: Inferno
Character: Nurse
Released: February 7, 1980
Type: Movie
A young man returns from Rome to his sister's satanic New York apartment house.
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Luna
Title: Luna
Character: Marina
Released: August 29, 1979
Type: Movie
While touring in Italy, a recently-widowed American opera singer has an incestuous relationship with her 15-year-old son to help him overcome his heroin addiction.
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Elective Affinities
Title: Elective Affinities
Character: Carlotta
Released: October 3, 1978
Type: Movie
Adaptation of Goethe's novel.
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Last Tango in Paris
Title: Last Tango in Paris
Character: Rosa
Released: October 14, 1972
Type: Movie
A recently widowed American begins an anonymous sexual relationship with a young Parisian woman.