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Above: Italian poster for The Girl with a Pistol. Artist: Giorgio Olivetti.Monica Vitti, who died on February 2nd at the age of 90, was an icon of modern cinema—one of its most famous and most beautiful faces—but she is best known outside Italy for just four films, all of which she made for her one-time partner Michelangelo Antonioni. In the original Italian poster for L’avventura (1960), the film that made both their names, her head is tilted to the side, her face barely visible: she is mostly a shock of blonde hair. But in the posters that were created as that film travelled the globe, and in her ensuing posters for Antonioni's La notte (1961), L’eclisse (1962), and Red Desert (1964), she gets her close-up, usually staring into the middle distance or directly at the viewer. Always impassive, never smiling. But of course, in a career that lasted another 25 years there were many more films,...

Monica Vitti, the Italian screen icon known for a string of 1960s classics, died Wednesday at 90, according to reports in Italy.

The news was conveyed by writer, director and politician Walter Veltroni on behalf of Vitti’s husband, Roberto Russo:

Roberto Russo, il suo compagno di tutti questi anni, mi chiede di comunicare che Monica Vitti non c’è più. Lo faccio con dolore, affetto, rimpianto.

— walter veltroni (@VeltroniWalter) February 2, 2022

The feted actress, best known for movies including L’Avventura (1960), Red Desert (1964), L’Eclisse (1962) and La Notte (1961), had been battling Alzheimer’s disease for two decades.

Born Maria Luisa Ceciarelli on November 3, 1931, in Rome, Vitti acted in amateur productions as a teenager then trained at Rome’s National Academy of Dramatic Arts.

The actress shot to global fame following spectacular collaborations with legendary director Michelangelo Antonioni in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Vitti starred in L’Avventura as a detached and...