Petite, gentle-looking lead of the 1950s discovered while studying in Rome by French director Leonide Mogue who then co-starred her in "Tomorrow Is Too Late" (1950) opposite Vittorio de Sica. She was put under contract by MGM and starred as a soulful Italian war bride in Fred Zinnemann's "Teresa" (1951), but aside from playing Rocky Graziano's wife in "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956) and a circus girl in "Merry Andrew" (1958), she subsequently found few other worthy projects. Her emotional entanglements and physical accidents helped put her career into a tailspin and before her death she appeared in sexploitation and horror films.
Just before her death, she spoke of her relationship with James Dean and in part said, "There was only one love in my life, and that was Jimmy Dean."
On September 10, 1971 she died of an overdose of barbiturates in Beverly Hills, California while making a Hollywood comeback in the minor movie Octaman (1971). Speculation that her death was a suicide has never been officially confirmed.
She is interred in the Cimetière des Bulvis, in Rueil-Malmaison, Hauts-de-Seine, France.
Anna Maria Pierangeli
June 19, 1932 – September 10, 1971
R.I.P
