| Rossana Podestà | |
| Birth Name: | Carla Dora Podestà |
| Birth Date: | 20 June 1934 |
| Birth Place: | Tripoli, Italian Libya |
| Death Place: | Rome, Italy |
| Occupation: | Actress |
| Years Active: | 1950–1985 |
| Children: | 2[1] |
| Partner: | Walter Bonatti (1981–2011; his death) |
Rossana Podestà (born Carla Dora Podestà; 20 June 1934 – 10 December 2013) was an Italian actress[2] who worked mainly in Italy from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Podestà was born in Tripoli in the Italian colony of Libya. She spent her first years there, moving with her parents to Rome after World War II. At sixteen she was discovered by director Léonide Moguy during the preparation of the cast for the film Domani è un altro giorno; this inaugurated her film career. She participated in sixty films, both in Italy and abroad.
In Italy, she resided in Dubino (Sondrio province). She married movie producer Marco Vicario, and they later divorced. From 1980 she lived with Walter Bonatti, a journalist and mountain explorer. He died alone in 2011, aged 81, at a private clinic; its management would not allow his partner to be with him because the two were not married. On 10 December 2013, Podestà died in Rome, aged 79.[3]
Podestà's most memorable role was as Helen in Helen of Troy, produced by Robert Wise in 1956. She could not speak English so she learned her lines by rote with a voice coach. The movie gave Podestà international exposure, and she performed alongside a young Brigitte Bardot. Thanks to her starring role in the Mexican film Rossana, she became very popular in Latin America.
Podestà also starred in the movie Ulisse (1955), directed by Mario Camerini, and in the sixties and seventies she acted in some romantic movies, including Paolo il caldo and Il prete sposato which led to a double page of five half-naked pictures in the US Playboy of March 1966. Under the headline "Trio Con Brio" featuring European actresses, she appeared alongside Christiane Schmidtmer (from Germany) and Shirley Anne Field (from the UK).
Her last performance was in Secrets Secrets (1985), directed by Giuseppe Bertolucci. She died on 10 December 2013.