Obituary: Sandra Milo, actor

Sandra Milo did not appear in many films, but the Italian actress had the great good fortune that one of them was Federico Fellini’s Oscar winner 8½, an avant garde classic and regular fixture in lists of the greatest films of all time. Milo, born in Tunisia in 1933, appeared in her first film in 1953, but made her breakthrough in the Roberto Rossellini-directed General della Rovere in 1959. Milo retired from acting after her first marriage, but was coaxed out of retirement by Fellini to star opposite Marcello Mastroianni’s tortured film maker as his mistress. Milo battled to secure parts which matched her talents and she again retired in 1968.

A decade later she unretired again, appearing on television and films and also trying her hand in the music business. Milo became a fixture on Italian television as a talk show host, and in 1990 was the victim of a tasteless on-air prank when a caller falsely told her her son, Ciro, had just been hospitalised after a serious car accident. Milo died on January 29 aged 90. — Agencies