Veteran Romanian actress Nadia Gray has had a very colorful life, even if a good number of her movies were in black and white. Born in Bucharest, Romania, she met her first husband, Constantin Cantacuzino, when, as the pilot of her commercial flight, he emerged from the cockpit to greet passengers. The two of them fled to Paris in the late 1940s during the Communist takeover, and she began a prolific and successful acting career. Nadia and Cantacuzino eventually settled in Spain, he died an early death in 1958, and she moved to New York after meeting her second husband in the late ‘60s. But between all that, she was a Star, with a capital S. While she appeared in numerous films, one of her most famous roles was as Nadia in Federico Fellini’s iconic and classic film La Dolce Vita (1960), starring Marcello Mastroianni. (And no, Mr. Skin is not translating that one; you should know it by its original title.) She celebrates her divorce by performing a striptease at a party, mostly while writhing around on the carpet. The elegant brunette is also known by American audiences for her part as Francoise Dalbret in the movie Two for the Road (1967) with Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney, or perhaps from the UK films I Like Money (1961) with Peter Sellers, where she had a starring role as Suzy; or as Karen Gisevius in The Naked Runner (1967) with Frank Sinatra. In her own adopted UK countries, Nadia also made films that were well-received even outside their borders, like Italy’s Crossed Swords (1954) with Errol Flynn and Gina Lollobrigida, and Nadia as Fulvia; or France’s La Parisienne (1957) starring Brigitte Bardot and Charley Boyer, with Nadia as queen Greta. She retired from acting in the late ‘60s, becoming a cabaret singer in New York City. Nadia died in June 1994 at the age of 70, due to a stroke.
