Paris is joining celebrations for the 100th anniversary of Italian screen legend Anna Magnani this month with a host of events in honour of the Rome-born actress.
The Italian Cultural Institute on Monday began a month-long series of films, documentaries and roundtable discussions focusing on Magnani, affectionately known by her nickname 'Nannarella'.
''Paris loved Anna greatly and Anna loved Paris greatly. She spoke French well - as she did English,'' said Giancarlo Governi, the author of Magnani biography Nannarella, who was in the French capital to kick off the celebrations.
''She spent time with intellectuals and was very refined, despite her lower-class screen persona, and she was the greatest Italian actress of all time,'' he added, explaining why the French fell in love with her.
Magnani (1908-1973) shot to international fame in Roberto Rossellini's 1945 Italian war classic Rome, Open City, the film that launched Italian neo-realism.
She worked with most of Italy's leading directors of the period including Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Luchino Visconti but also lent her talents to foreign directors such as Stanley Kramer, Sidney Lumet and Jean Renoir.
This month's events in Paris begin with Magnani's portrayal of a woman torn between three men in the Golden Coach (1953) by French director Renoir, who described his star as ''the quintessence of Italy''.
Magnani was the first Italian to win an Oscar - the best actress award for her role in the 1955 film The Rose Tattoo, written especially for her by American playwright Tennessee Williams.
Magnani was also nominated for an Oscar for the 1957 film Wild is the Wind, by George Cukor, a role which won her a Silver Bear at the Berlin film Festival.
She was named best actress at the Venice Film Festival in 1947 for her performance in Luigi Zampa's Onorevole Angelina.
According to a Belgian documentary on the actress, who has a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, she was also greeted by Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin on the first space flight in 1961 when he saluted ''brotherhood, the world of art and Anna Magnani''.
Among tributes in Italy for the film star's anniversary, the economy ministry issued a special silver 5-euro coin bearing Magnani's profile on one side and on the other an image from Rome, Open City.
