Luisa Ferida

Born Luigia Manfrini Frané in Castel San Pietro Terme, near Bologna, Ferida started as a stage actress. In 1935 she made her first appearance in film with a supporting role in La Freccia d'oro. Because of her photogenic looks and talent as an actress, she soon graduated to leading roles by the end of the 1930s.

In 1939, while working on Un Avventura di Salvator Rosa (1940), directed by Alessandro Blasetti, she met the actor Osvaldo Valenti. The pair became romantically involved and had a son.

Valenti had been linked with many Fascist officials and personalities for years and he eventually joined the Italian Social Republic, and for this reasons he was on the partisans' hit list. He was finally arrested in Milan, alongside a pregnant Ferida in April 1945. They were both sentenced to be executed and shot immediately in the street, without any proper trial. The partisan chief who organized the execution, Giuseppe "Vero" Marozin, declared years later that one of the partisan leaders that ordered the two actors to be executed was Sandro Pertini, who decades later became president of the Italian republic. No other source, however, supports Marozin's version of the incident.

The film Sanguepazzo starring Monica Bellucci discusses Luisa Ferida's relationship with Osvaldo Valenti. The film premiered at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.[1]

• Luisa Ferida at IMDb
• Luisa Ferida at Find a Grave