Isabella Rossellini
☼ Born on 18 December 1952, in Rome, Lazio, Italy
BiographyIsabella Rossellini, the Italian actress and model who has made her home in America since 1979 and holds dual Italian and American citizenship, was born cinema royalty when she made her debut on June 18, 1952 in Rome. She is the daughter of two legends, three-time Oscar-winning Swedish-born actress Ingrid Bergman and neo-realist master Italian director Roberto Rossellini. She was also the third wife of Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese from 1979 to 1982 and the partner of legendary director David Lynch.
She made her movie debut in Vincente Minnelli's A Matter of Time (1976), which starred her mother. She then made a couple of Italian pictures and worked as an American correspondent for Italian television network RAI before appearing in Taylor Hackford's Cold War drama White Nights (1985) in 1985. She followed that up with her most memorable role, as the abused chanteuse in Lynch's masterpiece Blue Velvet (1986), she earned an Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead. She then went on to win a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress, for her performance as Lisle, the mysterious socialite, forever in her youth in Death Becomes Her (1992). In 1997, she was nominated for an Emmy Award as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for a guest appearance on Chicago Hope (1994).
In the role of actor
Conclave (25/10/2024)
A conflicted Cardinal oversees a hotly contested election of a new Pope in Conclave. After the unexpected death of the Pope, Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), dean of the College of Cardinals, prepares to oversee the highly secretive election ritual of the conclave. Several frontrunners emerge to take up the papacy, including the left-wing reformist Cardinal […]
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (13/07/2022)
A sentient shell enlists the help of a filmmaker to find his family in Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Marcel (Jenny Slate) is a talking mollusk shell wearing pink sneakers who is discovered living in a house with her grandmother Connie (Isabella Rossellini) by filmmaker Dean (Dean Fleischer-Camp). Dean records a series of interviews […]
Blindspot: Canada 150: The Saddest Music in the World (30/03/2017)
Sorry for being a bit late for this month’s Blindspot entry, which takes a look at Guy Maddin’s 2003 musical comedy The Saddest Music in the World. Set in Winnipeg during The Great Depression, baroness Helen Port-Huntley (Isabella Rossellini) announces an international competition to find the saddest music in the world. Eager to join is failing […]
Closet Monster (17/01/2016)
A closeted homosexual teenager struggles with his identity and relationship with his father in Closet Monster. Oscar Madly (Connor Jessup) is an aspiring make-up artist living alone with his overbearing father (Aaron Abrams). After witnessing a brutal hate crime as a kid, Oscar fears the repercussions of people finding out he is homosexual, even though he begins […]
Enemy (05/01/2014)
Jake Gyllenhaal faces off with himself in this new doppelganger thriller from director Denis Villeneuve (Incendies), which is an adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning author José Saramago’s novel The Double. Adam Bell (Gyllenhaal) is a Toronto-based history professor, who lives a somewhat mundane and routine life with his girlfriend Mary (Mélanie Laurent). Based on the recommendation […]
Keyhole (08/01/2012)
TIFF’s annual celebration of Canadian Cinema is now well underway and today I saw the first of five films I plan on seeing in the Canada’s Top Ten series – Guy Maddin’s Keyhole. This was only the second of Maddin’s films that I have seen, the other being 2008’s My Winnipeg. However, it’s definitely obvious […]