Noris, Assia

(1912-1998)

   Actress. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, but raised in France, Anastasia von Gerzfeld, under the stage name of Assia Noris, became one of the leading Italian divas of the interwar period.

   A chance encounter with maverick Italian producer Giuseppe Amato led to her acting debut in Mario Bonnard's Tre uomini in frac (I Sing for You Alone, 1932), where she played the part of a rich and spoiled American schoolgirl who wants to have her own tenor. Having been drawn into the world of cinema, she soon became romantically involved with a young Roberto Rossellini and they were (reputedly) married, although the marriage was quickly annulled. Noris's cinematic career, however, continued to blossom, particularly due to her leading role in a number of elegant romantic comedies directed by Mario Camerini, in which she was paired with debonair leading man Vittorio De Sica, among them Dard un milione (I'll Give a Million, 1936), Il signor Max (Mister Max, 1937), and I grandi magazzini (Department Store, 1939). She subsequently took on more dramatic roles as in Mario Soldati's directorial debut, Dora Nelson (1939), where she played both a spoiled Russian princess and a lowly worker, and in Renato Castellani's "calligraphic" Un colpo di pistola (A Pistol Shot, 1942), adapted from a short story by Alexander Pushkin. Outside Italy she appeared in Abel Gance's remake of Le capitaine Fracasse (Captain Fracasse, 1943) and Louis Daquin's lackluster adaptation of a Georges Simenon novel, Le Voyageur de la Toussaint (The Traveler on All Saints' Day, 1943). She subsequently reappeared in Italy in a number of white telephone comedies, which included Mario Bonnard's Che distinta famiglia! (What a Distinguished Family! made 1943, released 1945), in which she was paired with veteran male heartthrob Gino Cervi.

   Although long regarded as the sweetheart of Italy and something of a pinup girl for Italian soldiers during World War II, Noris only surfaced in two films in the postwar period: Amina (1950), made in Egypt by Goffredo Alessandrini, and Carlo Lizzani's La Celestina P.R. (1965), a less-than-brilliant film that Noris herself both wrote and produced, and in which she played the madam of a brothel.