RIP Francesca Benedetti

 

Goodbye Francesca Benedetti, the actress was 89 years old

Sky

May 3, 2025

 

Born in Urbino on November 18, 1935, the lady of the Italian stage, muse for many greats from Testori to Ronconi, passed away today after a long illness. Next to her until the end, her sister Maria Teresa, 95, critic and art historian. The funeral will be held on Tuesday 6 May at 11 am in the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Piazza del Popolo

The actress Francesca Benedetti died this morning at 8 a.m., in her home. She was 89 years old, she was born in Urbino on November 18, 1935. She had been ill for some time. Next to her until the end was her sister Maria Teresa, 95, critic and art historian.

Lady of the Italian stage, muse for many directors, eclectic artist, between theater, radio, cinema and television, she has worked with the biggest names from Luca Ronconi to Giorgio Strehler, passing through Luigi Squarzina and Anton Giulio Majano, among others. Just three months ago, she had taken the stage in Rome for the last time in Giovanni Testori's Herodias.

The funeral will be held on Tuesday 6 May at 11 am in the church of Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Piazza del Popolo (the twin Church of the Artists is uninhabitable). The actress will then be buried in the cemetery of Sabaudia.

With "Herodias", Francesca Benedetti's farewell to the stage

Born into a middle-class and provincial family, Francesca Benedetti began her career after enrolling in Medicine, which she attended only for the first three years. She discovered the theatre, enrolled in the D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Art ("I tried the exams and they took me immediately. I had Gian Maria Volonté as a classmate") and as a recent graduate she took part in a Dapporto's magazine, 'Il diplomatico', but also directed by Orazio Costa in the tragedy 'Iphigenia in Tauride' with Alberto Lupo and Lilla Brignone.

Among his numerous shows, Strindberg's Il temporali in 1980 directed by Giorgio Strehler and the new adventure of the Orestiadi set up among the ruins of the Gibellina earthquake on the initiative of the mayor Ludovico Corrao in the Sicilian poetic conceived by Emilio Isgrò for this reinterpretation of Aeschylus, which, with the finale of the 'Eumenides' brings an incisive message of cultural rebirth for all the peoples threatened by the earthquakes of history. Sandro Sequi's Arrabal's Labyrinth, M. Murray's The Lunatics, Marivaux's The Fake Servant, Beckett's Happy Days to name just a few. Her latest award, the Flaiano Prize 2024 and at the Borgio Verezzi Festival in May, the Lifetime Achievement Award was scheduled for her.

For her farewell to the stage, she chooses the Teatro Vascello in Rome with the Herodias by Giovanni Testori (1923-1993), an author to whom she has been very close for years and who in this text overturned the original story of the Myth, with Herodias herself, and no longer her daughter Salome, who on a blood-red throne loves and desires the head of the Baptist.

BENEDETTI, Francesca

Born: 11/18/1935, Urbino, Marche, Italy

Died: 5/3/2025, Rome, Lazio, Italy

 

Francesca Benedetti’s western – actress:

Deaf Smith & Johnny Ears - 1972 (Mrs. Potter)