Elsa De Giorgi: Actress, Writer, and Art Collector Remembered

Elsa De Giorgi (1914–1997) was an Italian actress, writer, and art collector whose career began when she won a photography contest for Cines at age 21, landing the lead in Mario Camerini's 1933 film T'amerò sempre. Despite her father's opposition, her uncle signed the contract. She acted for directors like Alessandro Blasetti, Duilio Coletti, and Enrico Guazzoni. Through Cines president Emilio Cecchi, she met Mario Soldati, Alberto Moravia, Carlo Levi, and Anna Magnani. In 1949 she married Count Sandrino Contini Bonacossi and moved to Florence, focusing on writing and theater, performing in Luchino Visconti's Troilo e Cressida and Ildebrando Pizzetti's Le Trachinie. Her first novel I coetanei was published by Einaudi in 1955, edited by Italo Calvino, with whom she had a liaison until 1959, later recounted in her 1992 memoir Ho visto partire il tuo treno. She befriended Pier Paolo Pasolini, who cast her in La ricotta (1963) and his final film Salò e le 120 giornate di Sodoma (1975). De Giorgi was a generous host in her Rome apartments and at San Felice Circeo. Her art collection, documented by Valentina Di Prospero in the 2021 volume Elsa De Giorgi e il Circeo (edited by Vittoria Zileri dal Verme, published by De Luca), includes a 1947 polychrome ceramic bust by Leoncillo, a 1946 portrait by Carlo Levi, and drawings by Renato Guttuso, Mino Maccari, Leonor Fini, Bruno Caruso, and Adriana Pincherle.