// Workers AI · dad joke modeIs Isa Miranda a good actress? Miranda-ulously so.

Isa Miranda
Miranda in 1950s
Born	Ines Isabella Sampietro (1905-07-05)5 July 1905 Milan, Kingdom of Italy
Died	8 July 1982(1982-07-08) (aged 77) Rome, Italy
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1933–1978
Spouse	Alfredo Guarini ​ ​ (m. 1939; died 1981)​

Isa Miranda (born Ines Isabella Sampietro; 5 July 1905 – 8 July 1982) was an Italian actress with an international film career.

Biography

Miranda was born Ines Isabella Sampietro in Milan, the daughter of a street car conductor. When she was 10 years old, she began working as an errand girl for a dressmaker. She later had jobs in a box factory and a handbag factory. When she was 15, she became a model, a job that provided enough income for her to learn bookkeeping and typing in night school. She worked as a typist while attending the Accademia dei Filodrammatici in Milan and trained as a stage actress. She went on to play bit parts in Italian films in Rome. She changed her name to Isa Miranda and success came with Max Ophüls' film La Signora di tutti (Everybody's Woman; 1934) in which she played Gaby Doriot, a famous film star and adventuress with whom men cannot help falling in love. This performance brought in its wake several film offers and a Hollywood contract with Paramount Pictures. There, billed as the "Italian Marlene Dietrich", she played femme fatale roles in films such as Hotel Imperial (1939) and Adventure in Diamonds (1940).

She returned to Italy soon after the outbreak of World War II and continued to act on stage and to make films. In 1949, she starred in René Clément's The Walls of Malapaga, which won an Academy Award for the most outstanding foreign language film of 1950, and for Miranda, the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Another success of that period was La Ronde (1950), also directed by Ophüls.

Her career took her to France, Germany and Britain, where she frequently appeared in TV films, including The Avengers. Other notable film appearances included Siamo donne (1953), a portmanteau film, in which Miranda shared the screen with Anna Magnani, Alida Valli and Ingrid Bergman; Summertime (1955), starring Katharine Hepburn; Gli Sbandati (1955); The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964); The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968); and Liliana Cavani's The Night Porter (1974).

Miranda was married to the Italian director and producer Alfredo Guarini until his death in 1981. She died in Rome on 8 July 1982.

Selected filmography

Features

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1933	The Haller Case	Badwoman
1934	Cardinal Lambertini	Anna
	Everybody's Woman	Gabriella Murge, alias Gaby Doriot
	Tenebre	Vera
	Creatures of the Night	Una gigolette
1935	Red Passport	Maria Brunetti
	Like the Leaves	Irene "Nennele" Rosani
1936	The Love of the Maharaja	Mira Salviati
	A Woman Between Two Worlds	Mina Salviati
	Thou Art My Joy	Mary Hofer & Bianca Monti
1937	The Man from Nowhere	Louise Paléari
	The Former Mattia Pascal	Luisa Paleari
	Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal	Velia, a Roman woman
	The Lie of Nina Petrovna	Nina Petrovna
1938	Like the Leaves	Nennele
1939	Hotel Imperial	Anna Warschawska
1940	Adventure in Diamonds	Felice Falcon
	Senza cielo	Regina
1941	A Woman Has Fallen	Dina
1942	Document Z-3	Sandra Morini
	Malombra	Marina di Malombra
1944	Zazà	Zazà
1945	La carne e l'anima	Katrin detta "Stella"
	My Widow and I	Maria, sua moglie
1948	L'aventure commence demain	Clarence Holbane
1949	The Walls of Malapaga	Marta Manfredini
1950	I'm in the Revue	Isa
	Pact with the Devil	Marta Larocca
	La Ronde	Charlotte, the Actress
1951	Cameriera bella presenza offresi...	Angela Leonardi
1952	The Seven Deadly Sins	Mme Alvaro	Segment "Avarice and Anger"
	Gli uomini non guardano il cielo	The countess
1953	We, the Women	Isa	Segment "Isa Miranda"
1954	Before the Deluge	Madame Françoise Boussard
	The Secret of Helene Marimon	Hélène Marimon
	Rasputin	La tsarine Alexandra
1955	Summertime	Signora Fiorini
	The Abandoned	Contessa Luisa
	Rommel's Treasure	Mrs. Fischer
1956	I pinguini ci guardano
1957	I colpevoli	Lucia Rossello
	Arrivano i dollari!	Caterina Marchetti
	A Kiss for a Killer	Betty Farnwell
1959	Le secret du Chevalier d'Éon	La tzarine Elisabeth Petrovna
1963	Corruption	Signora Mattoli
	The Empty Canvas	Cecilia's Mother
1964	Hardi Pardaillan!	Catherine de Medicis
	Dog Eat Dog	Madame Benoit
	Do You Know This Voice?	Mrs. Marotta
	The Yellow Rolls-Royce	Duchesse d'Angouleme
	Una storia di notte	Peppino's wife
1966	Un monde nouveau	Une sage-femme
1967	Hell Is Empty	Isa Grant
1968	Darling Caroline	La duchesse de Bussez
	The Shoes of the Fisherman	The Marchesa
1969	L'assoluto naturale	Mother
	La donna a una dimensione	Elena
1970	The Syndicate: A Death in the Family	Tenutaria bordello
	Dorian Gray	Mrs. Ruxton
	Roy Colt and Winchester Jack	Mammola / Violet
	Un estate con sentimento	Sue's Mother
1971	Marta	Elena
	A Bay of Blood	Countess Federica Donati
1972	Lo chiameremo Andrea	Teacher
1974	The Night Porter	Countess Stein
	I'll Take Her Like a Father	Lorè
1977	La lunga strada senza polvere	The wife
1982	Apocalisse di un terremoto	Madre di Ciro	Final film role

External links

• Isa Miranda at IMDb
• Photographs and literature