Born 1925 as Palmira Omiccioli in Genoa, Italian actress Eleonora Rossi Drago moved to Rome, and had the luck to be cast in Persiane Chiuse (Closed Shutters, 1951), a melodrama about prostitution. The direction was taken over by Comencini, and after the film was a success, he cast her in the leading role of his next film La Tratta delle Bianche (The White Slave Trade, 1953), another melodrama.
Of all those who won fame as sex goddesses of the Italian cinema in the 1950s, Drago was the classiest. Though she had no training as an actor and came from a humble background, she was chosen for dramatic roles by some of the most distinguished directors of the day, including Luigi Comencini, Giuseppe De Santis, Michelangelo Antonioni and Valerio Zurlini. In 1955 she won critical praise for her performance on the stage as Helena in Luchino Visconti’s production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya.
Drago had the leading role in Le amiche (1955). She appeared in Un maledetto imbroglio (1959). In 1960, for her performance in Estate violenta, she won the best actress prize of the Mar del Plata Film Festival and the Nastro d’argento. In 1964, she appeared in La Cittadella.
Drago died in 2007 in Palermo, Sicily at the age of 82. Take a look at these gorgeous photos to see the beauty of Eleonora Rossi Drago in the 1950s and 1960s.
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