The Hollywood actress, 49, looked every inch the leading lady as she arrived at the Hotel Excelsior by boat for the Venice Film Festival on Thursday.
Angelina Jolie looked every inch the leading lady as she arrived at the Hotel Excelsior by boat for the Venice Film Festival on Thursday.
Angelia flew into Venice earlier this week ahead of the premiere for Maria, which is an upcoming biographical drama film about opera singer Maria Calla. It stars Angelina in the title role, with Valeria Golino as her sister Yakinthi, and Haluk Bilginer as Aristotle Onassis. Angelina looked effortlessly demure in a brown chiffon gown which had intricate criss cross stitching in the shape of a diamond across the waist
Callas lived from 1923 until 1977. She was born in American of Greek heritage and then trained in Greece as well as Italy. Starring in a movie about Callas was a passion project for Faye Dunaway who even wanted to use her own money for the film, but it never came off the ground. A new biography, drawing on her previously unpublished letters, makes exactly the opposite claim, however: Callas might have been cursed for all the suffering and betrayal she endured in her glittering but turbulent life.
The correspondence with her husband and agent, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, shows ‘she was really so subvervient and obedient to him, and I started to realise that is who she was as a woman’, Spence told the Daily Mail. She took it willingly, but with Callas effectively sedated, Onassis — whose ‘depraved’ sexual requests shocked even the notorious Paris brothel keeper Madame Claude — was able to sexually abuse the singer in demeaning ways, says her biographer, she wouldn’t have permitted if she had been fully conscious.
He was ugly and crude but Onassis exuded a powerful sexual magnetism and Callas was unable to resist. He had a preference for emaciated, androgynous-looking women and Callas — who was prone to weight gain and suffered from eating disorders throughout her life — responded by going on a dangerous crash diet, weighing every morsel of food and becoming emaciated herself so she could ‘fit his ideal’.
She was singing arias from Carmen by the time she was ten and her mother continually pestered the young Callas to perform for others. In 1945, Callas returned to the U.S. to be reunited with her father and to audition — successfully — for the Metropolitan Opera in New York. But then, despite her imperious, tantrum-filled behaviour as a diva — once ripping up her entire wardrobe the night before a dress rehearsal — Callas was vulnerable to those who showed her affection. ‘With kindness, people can get anything from me, can make me foolish,’ she claimed.
He ferreted much of the money away in Swiss bank accounts or used it to pay off his debts. When she discovered what he had done, she described him as her ‘pimp’. They first met at a ball in Venice in 1957 where Callas found him physically unappealing and unnervingly over-attentive. He pursued her with bucketloads of flowers signed ‘The Other Greek’. Callas didn’t try to put him off, admitting she was ‘happy to be pursued by a man no longer young but still predatory, still sexy, still stalking’.
Once freed of their respective spouses, Callas soon came to see the real Onassis, who returned her slavish devotion with a mixture of contempt, violent anger and lack of interest. He continued to see other women — including Jackie Kennedy’s sister Lee Radziwill. She did whatever he wanted, says her biographer, describing in her book how Callas ‘accompanied him to strip shows, and at his request, wore nothing but her diamonds in bed.’
Although Callas dismissed reports of their 1950s rivalry as media invention, Spence says her unpublished letters — especially one in which she described Tebaldi as ‘as nasty and as sly as they come’ — say otherwise.
United Kingdom Latest News, United Kingdom Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Venice Film Festival welcomes its first stars as Angelina Jolie arrives ahead of Maria premiere...Video of Sigourney Weaver arriving at the Venice Film Festival in a stylish fit. The 74-year-old actor took time to pose for photographers as she arrived by boat at the Hotel Excelsior pier.
Read more »
Venice Film Festival welcomes its first stars as Angelina Jolie arrives ahead of Maria premiere...Angelina Jolie, Jenna Ortega and Sigourney Weaver have arrived in Venice ahead of the city's annual Film Festival which begins on Wednesday.
Read more »
Sigourney Weaver looks glamorous in a black sequinned outfit as she attends the Venice Film Festival...Video of Sigourney Weaver arriving at the Venice Film Festival in a stylish fit. The 74-year-old actor took time to pose for photographers as she arrived by boat at the Hotel Excelsior pier.
Read more »
All Of The Best Venice Film Festival 2024 OutfitsHome to some of the best red carpet moments, we take a look at our favourite Venice Film Festival outfits from 2024. Read more on Grazia.
Read more »
Venice Film Festival 2024: All The Best Celebrity Dresses & LooksVenice Film Festival 2024 is underway, with the likes of Jenna Ortega, Cate Blanchett, and Angelina Jolie all showing their red carpet credentials.
Read more »
We Need To Talk About The Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Cast's Incredible Venice Film Festival LooksDaniel Welsh is a London-based entertainment journalist at HuffPost UK. His areas of expertise are film, TV and music. He particularly enjoys reality TV, Madonna and getting compliments about his hair.
Read more »