Lea Massari
Birthday: Born in 1933-06-30 in Roma, Lazio, Italy
Deathday: 2025-06-23
Anna Maria Massetani better known as Lea Massari (30 June 1933 — 23 June 2025) was an Italian actress. When she was 22, she changed her name to Lea Massari after the death of her fiancé Leo. She studied architecture in Switzerland. Massari became a celebrity in art cinema for two roles, the missing girl Anna in Michelangelo Antonioni's L'avventura (1960), and as Clara, the mother of a sexually precocious 14-year-old boy named Laurent (Benoît Ferreux) in Louis Malle's Murmur of the Heart (1971). She worked in both Italian and French Cinema. Her career includes Sergio Leone's debut Il Colosso di Rodi, and international commercial films such as Les choses de la vie. She was a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1975. She won Nastro d'Argento as Best Supporting Actress for her role in Francesco Rosi's Christ Stopped at Eboli.
TV Credits
Anna Karenina
Character: Anna Karenina
In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation....
I fratelli Karamazov
Character: Agrafena Aleksàndrovna
Italian adaptation of Dostoevskys famous novel....
Spécial cinéma
Character: Self
Marcello Mastroianni, Isabelle Adjani, Alain Delon, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen... the biggest stars in cinema were welcomed by Christian Defaye on his show Spécial cinéma. Between intimate confessions from actors and immersion in the world of the greatest filmmakers, Christian Defaye took viewers on a journey into the fascinating world of cinema for nearly thirty years....
Les Rendez-vous du dimanche
Character: Self
A talk show presented by Michel Drucker...
Midi Première
Character: Self
Midi Première is a French variety show presented by Danièle Gilbert, directed by Jacques Pierre and broadcast from January 6, 1975 until January 1, 1982 on TF1. The program was generally broadcast between 12:15 p.m. and 12:55 p.m., then giving way to the 1:00 p.m. TV news. However, the broadcast schedule could change, depending on the guests, and the setting where the recording of the program was shot. Certain performances by artists who have become cult like the one where Ringo jostles with a d...
Movie Credits
Resurrection
Character: Maria Pawlowa
Young Prince Nechljudov is summoned as a judge in a murder trial. A rich merchant was found dead in the room of the inn where he was staying and the prostitute Maslova was accused of the crime. Nechljudov recognizes in the woman the maid of the aunts he had seduced and abandoned years before and tries to convince the authorities of her of his innocence but to no avail. Convinced that he is responsible for her moral fall, he follows her to Siberia where she must serve her sentence....
The Things of Life
Character: Catherine Bérard
The mind of Pierre Bérard, a successful middle-aged architect, is torn between his unstable present with Hélène, his younger lover, and his happy memories of the past with Catherine, his ex-wife; but his true destiny awaits him at a crossroads on his way to Rennes…...
Devil's Ransom
Character: Britt
A rich industrialist is accused of a crime he didn't commit. But every single clue leads to him....
L'Avventura
Character: Anna
Claudia and Anna join Anna's lover, Sandro, on a boat trip to a remote volcanic island. When Anna goes missing, a search is launched. In the meantime, Sandro and Claudia become involved in a romance despite Anna's disappearance, though the relationship suffers from guilt and tension....
The Night Caller
Character: Norah Elmer
A serial-killer frightens Paris by phoning young ladies at night, telling them insults about their lives. Minos, as he calls himself, wants to prevent the world from free women and he targets at first these ones. Commissaire Letellier is given the investigation and he has hard work with the maniac....
Christ Stopped at Eboli
Character: Luisa Levi
In the fascist Italy of 1935, a painter trained as a doctor is exiled to a remote region near Eboli. Over time, he learns to appreciate the beauty and wisdom of the peasants, and to overcome his isolation....
Murmur of the Heart
Character: Clara Chevalier
This loosely plotted coming-of-age tale follows the life of 15-year-old Laurent Chevalier as he stumbles his way over the burgeoning swell of adolescence in 1950s France. After having his first sexual experience with a prostitute and dodging the lips of a priest, Chevalier contracts a case of scarlet fever. When the fever leaves him with a heart murmur, Chevalier is placed in a sanatorium, along with his over-attentive and adulterous mother....
The Colossus of Rhodes
Character: Diala
While on holiday in Rhodes, Athenian war hero Darios becomes involved in two different plots to overthrow the tyrannical king, one from Rhodian patriots and the other from sinister Phoenician agents....
The Four Days of Naples
Character: Maria
September 1943. After Italy surrenders to the Allies, people in Naples believe the war is finally over, but soon they realize Germans are still in control — and as ruthless as ever. Armed with makeshift weapons, civilians rise up en masse against the invaders — and overwhelming odds....
Made in Italy
Character: Monica (segment "1 'Usi e costumi', episode 3")
A group of Italians take a flight to Sweden: among them there are the tourists, and the immigrants....
Allonsanfan
Character: Charlotte
After the 1815 Restoration, an aging revolutionary finds himself reluctantly involved in an attempted insurrection in Southern Italy while growing increasingly disillusioned with his cause....
The Camp Followers
Character: Toula
In WWII, Lieut. Martino and his men are assigned to lead a group of prostitutes through the mountainous ways to serve in brothels for Italian soldiers in Albania....
The Seventh Target
Character: Nelly
Bastien Grimaldy, a man driven to heightened anxiety as the plot against him begins to take effect. Bastien's personal relationships give him enough cause for anxiety -- between his new lover Laura and a feisty mother, life provides its own insecurities. When he goes to the police with his problems, Bastien is assigned an off-beat inspector to protect him but is still faced with skepticism about his dilemma....
The Silent One
Character: Maria
Who is Anton Haliakov, who has just been abducted by the M.I.5 in London? A Soviet scientist apparently. But sixteen years before the man had another identity, Clément Tibère, and another nationality, French. So what led him to become Russian and to change identity? And why are the British secret services interested in him?...
A Difficult Life
Character: Elena Pavinato
Silvio refuses to fight for the fascists and joins the resistance with Elena. After the war, his vitriolic newspaper articles cause him to be sentenced to imprisonment....
And Hope to Die
Character: Sugar
A crook on the run hooks up with a criminal gang to commit a kidnapping. However, things don't go quite as planned....
Monica Vitti, une étoile dans la nuit
Character: Self (archive footage)
...
The Meetings of Anna
Character: Anna's mother
Detached filmmaker Anna Silver arrives in Germany to show her latest film; over the course of some days, she encounters a variety of new and old faces, some of whom make personal revelations to her to little affect....
Garden of Delights
Character:
Charlo and Carla are on their honeymoon. She is three months pregnant. He, furious about his marriage of convenience, recalls the past and ponders on The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, dear to the Surrealists. While she is bleeding, he spends the night with a beautiful stranger......
The Probability Factor
Character: Gloria
Fred works for an insurance company as a computer engineer. He is bored with enduring the trials of his shrewish wife, so, after using actuarial tables to calculate the most common means of death, he cleverly prepares the family bathroom and brings about her demise. For a while he is content with his new freedom, but then he recognizes that a friend is in a similar situation....
I Want Him Dead
Character: Aloma
After his sister is kidnapped and murdered, a gunslinger's plans for vengeance involve assassinating two generals to prolong the Civil War....
Paris Pick-Up
Character: Marthe Dravet
On Christmas night, an ex-convict meets a beautiful, married Italian woman who has a lot of things to hide....
The Woman in Blue
Character: Aurélie
Leading man Michel Piccoli plays Pierre, a young musician who briefly catches sight of a beautiful woman dressed in blue and soon spends all of his time trying to track her down. After roaming the streets of Paris in search of the mystery woman, he recruits an old friend to help find her....
A Dog Called... Vengeance
Character: Muriel
A political prisoner in a South American dictatorship escapes and is pursued throughout the country by a bloodthirsty dog....
The Unvanquished
Character: Dominique Servet
In this drama that alludes to the Algerian War with France of the 1960s, Thomas is a deserter from the French Foreign Legion who is on the run from authorities. He helps damsel in distress Dominique, who has been taken hostage by a group of terrorists. Thomas is wounded but manages to escape after killing the guard who inflicted the injury. Dominique gives Thomas money to escape to France after he secures her freedom, but he is caught between the Foreign Legion and the terrorists seeking revenge...
Impossible Object
Character: Hippolyta
Harry is a married writer who has an affair with a woman whose husband knows that she is unfaithful. As a result of his work, Harry has trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality leaving us to wonder whether the affair is real or just a figment of Harry's imagination....
The Son
Character: Maria
Ange leaves New York to fly to his native Corsica. His mother is dying and Ange, who was not present when his father died, wishes to be present at her death. In Corsica Ange finds his brother Baptiste who married Maria, the woman he loved. He finds out that his father was killed, but nobody wants to tell him the name of the killer. And finally he finds two killers expecting him....
Dreams Die at Dawn
Character: Anna Miklos
Five Italian journalists live the last hours of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956....
I sogni nel cassetto
Character: Lucia Moretti
The difficulties of a young married couple, since the husband has to prepare for his examinations during his wife's pregnancy....
From a Roman Balcony
Character: Freya
The ironic study of a young man's poignant adventures and sensual adventures...based on "Roman Tales" by Alberto Moravia....
Chi dice donna, dice donna
Character: Gilbert
Film in five episodes on the female universe. Among the women portrayed, neglected wives who become prostitutes, a worker who improvises a sexy bomb and a priestess who gives herself as wife to an emigrant....
Faces of Love
Character: Cecilia
After 10 years separation from his wife, a film director (Jean-Louis Trintignant), imagines he can make up with her by giving her a part in his next film, an adaptation of Tshekov's "Three Sisters". He goes location scouting and stays in Bex, a Spa near Lake Leman, together with the three actresses : Julie, his ex-wife (Delphine Seyrig), the mysterious Cecilia, that his producer wants him to take (Lea Massari), and Esther (Valérie Mairesse), a teenager. They all stay in an old decaying hotel. ...
Journey of Love
Character: Zaira
An older couple finally travels to the sea, reliving old memories along the way....
Forbidden
Character: Agnese Barras
Don Paolo, a young parson troubled by his love for Agnese, tries to make peace in a little village in Sardinia where two families are at war....
Secrets Secrets
Character: Marta
Young terrorist Laura shoots both a judge and a comrade, and over time her violent act becomes a thread linking the lives and fates of several other women. Each has her own secret, including the lawyer who listens to Laura as if in a ‘trance’: moments before, she discovered her husband was cheating....
Conquered City
Character: Lelia Mendores
Filmed in 1962 but not released in the US until 1966 (with 20 of its 108 minutes removed), Conquered City is an all-star World War II drama financed in Italy and filmed in Greece. An Athens hotel, full of refugees and expatriates of all nationalities, is captured by Allied troops in the closing days of the War. British Major David Niven has been ordered to prevent a cache of weapons hidden in the hotel from falling into the hands of renegade troops. He cannot allow himself to trust anyone--not e...
Antonio Gramsci: The Days of Prison
Character: Tania
Antonio Gramsci, sentenced to twenty years in prison by the fascist tribunals, relives the stages of his political career and private life....
Weeping for a Bandit
Character: María Jerónima
José María "El Tempranillo" fleeing from justice, takes refuge in Sierra Morena. After a period of hard learning, he becomes the leader of a group of bandits....
Edipo Re
Character: Iocasta
...
Paolo e Francesca
Character:
...
Le Divorcement
Character: Rosa
In this rambling comic tale about a man and a wife, with four children, who calmly announce to the children that they want to divorce one another, it is impossible to tell who is dissatisfied with whom about what. They had seemed to be a perfect couple. Their flabbergasted children have mixed feelings, and the most difficult thing about the divorce, besides understanding why it is taking place at all, is deciding what will happen with the couple's numerous pets....
La Flambeuse
Character: Louise
A woman on the brink of middle age becomes bored and takes up playing cards. She becomes hooked on gambling and begins to neglect her husband and children....
Sarah
Character: Carla Angelli
An insurance investigator meets an attractive woman in a hotel on his way to check out the causes of a fire that destroyed a movie set....
Céleste
Character: Hélène
Georges Cazenave, a " politically committed" French TV reporter leads a good life. Besides having a regular mistress in the person of Hélène, he is a ladies man with "a girl in every port". But this comfortable situation is challenged the day he hires Céleste as his housemaid. A Portuguese immigrant, she soon appears to be a Marxist-Leninist activist, engaged in political groups working against the regime of Salazar, the dictator of Portugal. Geoges and Céleste fall in love with each other, whic...
Indian Summer
Character: Monica
In Italy, the gambler and professor of poetry Daniele Dominici arrives in the seaside town of Rimini and is hired to teach for four months in the local high school replacing another teacher. His relationship with his partner Monica is in crisis and he spends most of the time with his new acquaintances and gamblers Giorgio, Marcello and Gerardo. In classroom, he meets the gorgeous nineteen years old student Vanina Abati, who is Gerardo's girlfriend....
Bloody Murder
Character: Helene Noblet
Hélène, an antique dealer and her husband Georges, a respected doctor, live in a beautiful property and gives everyone the image of conjugal happiness. The children, Daniel and Nadine, are busy with their studies and their loves. The bourgeois life of Hélène is troubled by the murder of her lover, Philippe, a friend of her son. She finds the body when she goes to one of their appointments. In shock, she still thinks to take away the address book of the victim where her name appears - object comp...
Return to Lisca Bianca Island
Character: Anna (voice) (archive footage)
Twenty-three years after L'Avventura (1960), Michelangelo Antonioni returns to Lisca Bianca Island. The rarefied atmosphere of Anna's (Lea Massari's) disappearance is recalled by some audio excerpts from the original movie....
Il était une fois Sergio Leone
Character: Self
...
Stream Line
Character: Amanda Treves
Rome, October 16, 1943. The Germans deport the relatives and friends of the little Giacomo Treves who fortunately escapes capture. The child is entrusted by a priest, Don Luigi....
Volver a vivir
Character: María
A former soccer player is morally and mentally destroied by the death of his wife. But when he gets the chance to train a team he regains his life by making victories and also finding another love....
Violette & Francois
Character: Cécile Levene
Violette and François are a couple with a child. As they cannot lead a good life with odd jobs, François starts to steal....