Blonde Italian bombshell Virna Lisi was born on November 8, 1936, in Ancona, Italy. She was initially discovered by directors in Rome and started her film career as a teen, appearing in works such as The Steel Rope (1953), Naples Sings (1953), and Of Life and Love (1954). Virna is probably best known to American audiences as the drop-dead gorgeous stripper who understands so little English she accidentally marries repressed homosexual Jack Lemmon in How to Murder Your Wife (1965). Marketed as a foreign answer to Marilyn Monroe, Virna appeared in a couple of other mid '60s Technicolor flicks, including Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966) (opposite Tony Curtis) and Assault on a Queen (1966) (opposite Frank Sinatra, whom no one could possibly mistake for a repressed "queen"). With very few exceptions (such as a questionable appearance opposite Scott Baio in the little-seen stinker I Love N.Y. [1988]), pretty much everything Virna's been in since the Summer of Love has been either an Italian or French production. This is undoubtedly for the best, especially as far as skinema is concerned — Virna bared all in the French film Les Galets d'Étretat (1972). She kept busy for decades with Italian TV and film appearances, of course in more matronly roles, but she remained as hot as ever until she passed away at the ripe age of 78 in 2014. Virna will be missed, but at least she left us with a view of her French flesh pastries in Les Galets d'Étretat.
