Curiosidades

When she was 22, she decided to name herself "Lea" after her deceased fiancé Leo.

Educated throughout Europe, including Switzerland where she studied architecture.

Stunning Italian actress in 1960s chic, passionate drama.

Member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1975.

Best known for her role as Anna, the woman who vanishes in Michelangelo Antonioni's "L'Avventura" (1960).

Assistant to art director Piero Gherardi before being spotted by director Mario Monicelli who cast her in his film "Proibito" (1954).

Lea Massari passed away on June 23, 2025, one week away from what would have been her 92nd birthday on June 30, 2025.

Massari became known in art cinema for two roles: the missing girl Anna in Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura (1960), and as Clara, the mother of a sexually precocious 14-year-old boy named Laurent (Benoît Ferreux) in Louis Malle's Murmur of the Heart (1971).

In addition to her campaigns for the defense of animals and against vivisection, which have also led her to support various kennels, her passion for the guitar and Brazilian music is well known.

Lea Massari was an Italian actress and singer.

In 1970, she starred alongside Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider in the controversial L'amante, the first success of director Claude Sautet, for which the Roman actress won the Louis-Delluc prize.

Lea Massari resided in France, Spain and Switzerland during her childhood.

She worked in the early 1950s as a model and collaborated with the set and costume designer Piero Gherardi, a family friend, who soon introduced her to the world of cinema.

Massari worked in both Italian and French cinema. Her career includes Sergio Leone's debut The Colossus of Rhodes (Il Colosso di Rodi, 1961) and international commercial films such as The Things of Life (Les choses de la vie, 1970).

In the 1960s, she took part in many Italian and French productions, playing increasingly demanding roles and, mostly, as a bourgeois woman.

Massari won the Nastro d'Argento for Best Supporting Actress award for her appearance in Francesco Rosi's Christ Stopped at Eboli (Cristo si è fermato a Eboli, 1979).