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Italy bids farewell to actress Eleonora Giorgi

By: Wanted in Rome

Date:

03 Mar, 2025

Tributes pour in for Eleonora Giorgi who is remembered for her films and love of life.

Italian actress Eleonora Giorgi has died in Rome at the age of 71, following a long battle with pancreatic cancer, her family said on Monday.

Since revealing her illness on television in 2023, Giorgi maintained a positive outlook on life, inviting everyone to "live without wasting their time".

Giorgi had a long and varied career in Italian cinema and television, appearing in dozens of films in the 1970s and 1980s, many of which were comedies and erotic comedies, as well as taking on dramatic roles.

Her best-known films include Mia moglie è una strega (1980), Grand Hotel Excelsior (1982), and Borotalco (1982), for which she won the David di Donatello award and remembered it as "the most beautiful role of my career".

Italy's culture minister Alessandro Giuli in a statement hailed Giorgi as "an eclectic popular interpreter of Italian cinema whose talent has marked entire generations of spectators, ranging from brilliant to dramatic roles with intensity and authenticity”.

Deputy premier Antonio Tajani in a post on X described Giorgi as a "star of Italian cinema" and "a brave woman who never stopped smiling and fighting for her life, even in the face of a terrible disease."

Carlo Verdone, with whom Giorgi starred in his cult 1982 film Borotaclo, wrote a fond tribute to his friend in a post on Instragram.

"Thank you for giving me your lightheartedness, your enthusiasm, your smile and your precious friendship" - Verdone said - "And thank you for being a great, courageous example for everyone during this hard and merciless year".

Giorgi, who leaves behind two adult sons and a grandson, passed away with gratitude and without regrets, as she said in a television interview last September.

"I feel flooded with goodness and I have no hard feelings" - she said - "There is one mad thing that I have to say: this has been the best year of my life, I have been loved like never before."

Her funeral will be held at the Chiesa degli Artisti in Rome's central Piazza del Popolo at 16.00 on Wednesday.