Sandra Milo was the mistress, the neighbour, the woman built for pleasure, and she played her without malice or apology. Fellini gave her the two parts that made the reputation; almost nothing else she was offered came close.
Fi1m perspective
She arrives at a railway station in furs and asks to be hidden in a second hotel. That is Carla in 8½ (1963), the mistress Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) has summoned to the spa and would rather nobody saw, and it is the part Sandra Milo will be remembered for. She plays Carla as a woman who reads comics, adores him and is never taken seriously by him or by the film. Milo does not argue with that. She lets Carla be exactly as small as Guido thinks she is, and on our last viewing we found her sadder than we remembered, because nothing she does asks for pity and none of it is noticed by the man it is for.
She had been working for eight years by then. Her debut was in Antonio Pietrangeli's The Bachelor (1955), opposite Alberto Sordi. Roberto Rossellini gave her a first sizeable part in General della Rovere (1959) and then a lead in Vanina Vanini (1961), which was badly received, partly on account of a high, childlike voice that critics kept noticing and that was sometimes dubbed over. She left the business. Fellini persuaded her back, and the two films they made together are the reason there is a page to write.
Juliet of the Spirits (1965) gives her three roles, and the one that counts is Suzy, the woman in the red villa next door to Giulietta Masina, who keeps a house built for pleasure and offers her neighbour a freedom that comes down to better underwear and more visitors. Milo plays her without a trace of malice, which is right: Suzy is not the villain, she is the brochure. It is the same instrument as Carla, the body that makes the woman beside it look more buttoned-up, put to a different use. The film runs 148 minutes, and a good forty of them are Fellini admiring his own party. Milo is one of the guests who earns her place.
That instrument was also the limit. Italian and French films of the period cast her for her figure and her lack of inhibition, and after 1965 the parts were mostly second-rate. She retired again at the end of the 1960s, came back from 1979 as older women, severe or maternal where she had once been anything but, and from the 1980s was better known as a television host. There were late returns to cinema for Pupi Avati in Il cuore altrove (2003) and Gabriele Salvatores in Happy Family (2010), and a final part in The Best Century of My Life (2023). Of Fellini's direction she said, "Da quel giorno, come attrice, non ho mai provato più pudore": from that day, as an actress, she never felt shame again. Two good films with one director is a thin career by most measures. It is also two more than most actors get, and the first of them we would send a stranger to.
Biography
Sandra Milo (born Salvatrice Elena Greco) was an Italian actress. Born on 11 March 1933 in Tunis, she died on 29 January 2024 in Rome. She is best known for her roles as Carla in Federico Fellini’s 8½ (1963) and as Suzy/Iris/Fanny in Juliet of the Spirits (1965), winning a Nastro d’Argento for best supporting actress for each performance.
Milo made her film debut in 1955 in The Bachelor alongside Alberto Sordi. Her first major role came in Roberto Rossellini’s General della Rovere (1959). She appeared in several comedies and melodramas before retiring after marriage. Fellini persuaded her to return for 8½. She retired again in 1968 and made a second comeback in 1979, later taking on roles as middle-aged women. She also worked in television and wrote books.
