Born a Venetian aristocrat in 1934, granddaughter of one of Italy’s richest men, Countess Marina Cicogna Mozzoni Volpi di Misurata transcended her gilded background to become Europe’s first major female film producer, bringing to the screen such cinematic masterpieces as Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema (1968), Franco Zeffirelli’s Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972), and Elio Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, which won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film in 1971.
“Her intelligence is what distinguished her from other aristocrats,” notes Fran Lebowitz of Cicogna, who died last month after a long struggle with cancer. “She defied the conventions of her world, but she always stayed in it. Marina wasn’t a rebel. She was a dandy.”
