What's the scoop on Isabella Rossellini?

I met her a a press conference when she launched a range of cosmetics about 20 years ago. She was tiny and slim, but photographed more "ample". Also just rattled off the press release which we thought was pretty crap. Got the impression that her English wasn't that great and while she was attractive in that round faced euro way, she was no great beauty and those Lancome images of her were highly manufactured.

I still have a the little bottle of 'Manifesto' perfume that she gave me.

I remember the way David Letterman would always call her, "EEEES a bella." He seemed besotted by her. Or is it with her?

This interview she did back in the 90s talks about her becoming an adoptive parent, she talks about her thoughts on adoption, talks about her parents, etc. Very revealing and utterly charming and highly thoughtful talk by Isabella.

[quote]while she was attractive in that round faced euro way, she was no great beauty and those Lancome images of her were highly manufactured.

r1 When it comes to Isabella, her extraordinary personality makes up for any ordinary beauty she may have. English may not be her first language, but when she knows what to say, she's one of the most articulate celebs I've ever heard. She really impresses me.

If there are any Charlotte Rampling fans here, you might like this- Charlotte interviewing Isabella and vice-versa...

Gotta love those Euro ladies!

She had a relationship with david Lynch, which wasn't so positive for her. Around the time of BLUE VELVET.

I think she's stunning.

r6- It's odd though, how she hasn't been linked to anyone in decades. Or, at least it seems that way. She must have an ironclad grip on her privacy for nothing to leak out about who she's been seeing lately- unless she's literally been single all this time (but I find that hard to believe for someone like her).

Check out youtube for her funny clips on how animals have sex.

I thought she would age better.

Age is a bitch but she's being graceful about it. I think she's fabulous.

I think it's great that she is aging mostly naturally. So tired of the joker smiles and smooth faces of today.

She is more beautiful than Ingrid.

She's had some great lovers. Married to Scorcese. Then this ginger Harvard grad and model. Did she ever graduate from Hunter in animal behaviour? That was a weird and wonderful mid-life crisis.

Her adopted son Roberto is a handsome and tall young man.

Love her. But doesn't she have more of a Swedish accent than an Italian one when speaking English? I always found it a bit odd

R5, sexy whores!!!

R13, what am I, chopped liver?

R12 Their faces are basically identical though

R18 - I agree. Of all of Ingrid's four children, Isabella looks the most like her mother. Personally, I always thought that she had better features than Ingrid.

Yes, R15, like Ingrid.

"She was tiny and slim" Are you sure? Mother was 5'8"

she has a house on the south shore of long island, not the hamptons, and is very interested in environmental causes and sustainable agriculture. a relative of mine worked with her on some of these projects a few years ago . she's very smart, gracious, private, and seemed very concerned about her children. not a snob at all....very serious

Super sensational

She was funny in "The Impostors".

And got to play a scene opposite shirtless Stanley Tucci in "Big Night".

Jealous, much?

She's bi. One of you beautiful sexy type girls could snatch her up if you had the mind to, but you have to be worldly, well read and intelligent.

Someone I knew lived in the same building as Rossellini on UWS and loved her (I believe Rossellini sold that apt). Supposedly, very down to earth.

I've seen her in the city. She is short, R20.

I fell in love with her (and Christian Campbell) in Roger dodger

[quote] Isabella Rossellini is the daughter of screen iron, Ingrid Bergman

I had no idea

I worked with her probably 30 or more years ago, before Blue Velvet came out, , but right around that time. She was still modeling then. The project wasn't anything special and we were all worried she'd be a diva but she was so lovely and easy. I have loved and respected her since. What a professional.

And she deserves DL icon status for her performance in Death Becomes Her alone!

Adopted my ass. That boy is biracial, where did she get him from? He is adopted in the same way connor cruise or michelle phieffers daughter is adopted. Most likely she or her daughter fucked a black man and it was too taboo for her to come out with it so she claims he was adopted.

Does the boy look like her? Can't one adopt a bi-racial baby?

I remember her being topless in Blue Velvet and noticing her boobs were crooked.

Wasn't she briefly married to (or at least involved with) Gary Oldman at one time? Now that's a sexy pairing!

I can't stand her!

Yes, but they never married, R32. I read that she gave him an ultimatum to go into rehab. I He did and got sober, but I don't know what happened to the relationship. He met the crazy Donya Fiorentino and had a couple of kids. She was unstable enough that he got full custody.

sick of rampling.....i saw that 40 years? movie she made and it was SO depressing. the slant of her eyes is bizarre and makes her face look strange. so she got naked a lot when she was young....that's about it.

she has a fraternal twin sister Isotta Ingrid Rossellini, who is an adjunct professor of Italian literature. i have her Some of Me book...it is really nice. lots of photos. ( it was mentioned in that rosie clip). I love Isabella.

I follow her and her daughter Elettra on Instagram. Isabella seems like a wonderful person, warm and down-to-earth. She's always posting photos of her farm animals. Her daughter recently published a cookbook, and has a food blog. The gorgeous ginger ex-husband worked at Microsoft for many years.

I saw her last month in the subway. I noticed a very distinct nose and turned my head, and she clocked me looking at her. I just did the NYC head tilt and kept walking, but the minute she'd rounded the corner I texted my partner--our first date was to see "Death Becomes Her." She looks lovely, dressed very simply, not skinny anymore but beautiful skin.

I like her green porno

She's featured in the HBO documentary ABOUT FACE: SUPERMODELS THEN AND NOW.

Through conversations with supermodels, including Carol Alt, Marisa Berenson, Karen Bjornson, Christie Brinkley, Pat Cleveland, Carmen Dell'Orefice, Jerry Hall, Bethann Hardison, Beverly Johnson, China Machado, Paulina Porizkova, Isabella Rossellini, Lisa Taylor and Cheryl Tiegs, the documentary reveals the roles they played in defining - and redefining - beauty over time.

Fun seeing these familiar faces many of them now in their 60's, 70's and 80's.

^^^here's a working link to the trailer^^^

For me, she is the type of woman who could make a gay man think twice about himself. Charm, looks enlightened, multi-lingual..did I say charm...something the majority of women today lack, and haven't a clue of how to acquire. Perhaps it's that older more established upper class, carefully brought-up European background that gives rise to this incredibly charming woman. Audrey Hepburn and Kristen Scott Thomas come close.

I remember Ms. Rossellini years ago on the David Letterman show...he with his usual frat house humor made fun of her name by repeating over and over. She just blinked a few times...the gave a "well, I'll consider the source" glance. Great accent, great laugh, self-deprecating way that makes you 'pull up your socks'. We are on the same page...so glad to find someone else who found her wonderful!.

I've seen her in the city several times and she's strikingly beautiful with gorgeous skin.

She showed comic chops as Alec Baldwin's ex-wife on "30 Rock."

"Dammit, Jackie, you know I love my big beef 'n cheddar!"

"SEMPRE VIVE! LIVE FOREVER!"

If she is short, then Scorsese must be tiny, tiny, get out the magnifying glass

She is, she tells me, not interested in chasing perfection. “When people tell me, ‘You look so glamorous, you look sophisticated or elegant,’ it’s wonderful. But when people say, ‘You’re beautiful,’ I find it a little condescending. Worse now, because they say, ‘You’re still beautiful.’ In Italian, we say it’s a knife with both edges, because I know that they mean it to please me, but it’s almost like saying to a black woman, ‘You’re not so dark, you don’t look so black.’ I am old: this is what 65 looks like.” She is irritated that her generation isn’t better catered for. “There is no fashion for women my age, I’m sorry to say.” She tugs at her lovely navy silk tunic. “This, I designed myself, because it’s impossible to find things that aren’t for just one type. It has to be skinny, or it has to be sexy – I don’t know what’s going on in fashion.” I point out that sleeves are as easy to find as black orchids. “Exactly! There are no sleeves. I want sleeves! You can’t find them.

She persuaded David Lynch to give her a chance at Blue Velvet as David’s first choice was Helen Mirren.

So much finesse.

[quote]Perhaps it's that older more established upper class, carefully brought-up European background that gives rise to this incredibly charming woman.

I love her but r42 sounds like a bourgeois embarrassment.

{50} Not really, just stunned and a reaction to by depths our country has fallen to this year. I am a fourth generation college educated black man, so charm, reticence and thoughtfulness rank with me. No one needs the rough edges that are celebrated today, especially since technology brings us well within the six degrees of separation.

I've named my Pug "Isabella Rossellini."

As a kid, I assumed, based on her lack of any discernible talent and ugly face, that she was one of those people who was only famous because she was very rich.

r50- I don't think r42 meant it that way. He's just trying to pin-point that certain something about her.

Her mother Ingrid was the real beauty but Isabella has an interesting and charming personality.

Joan Jett of the early 1990s tends to remind me a lot of Isabella Rossellini. Surely, I can't be the only one to pick up on a certain sameness between them, can I?

Anyway, I love them both so much!

r55- For me, Isabella is the real beauty, though I do like her mother (but I LOVE Isabella).

...And she has one of the most lyrical, beautiful names I've ever heard!

R58 - It is for this reason I gave the most beautiful, lyrical name to my precious "Isabella Rossellini," who is also beautifully photogenic.

Well every man to his own liking, said the woman who kissed the cow...I'll take Isabella and her upbringing and sensibilities over Mrs. Trump, Kelleyanne, Amorosa and other women in Trump's inner circle

I think she is the epitome of grace and elegance, but more importantly she has a sense of humour and a sense of curiosity about the world. Sad to say, most people as lucky and beautiful as her tend not to question it.

And I love the fact that she is ageing and seems ok with it. It's refreshing to see a famous older woman whose original face isn't now pinned behind her left earlobe.

Apparently everyone in this thread has met her. Lol

New DL fave Isabella Rossellini.

There is a possibility of her.

I completely agree, R51.

As the OP of this thread, it makes me happy to read so many positive things about the unique Isabella Rossellini. I pride myself on having great taste in people, and on my list of fave celeb women, Isabella is a fixture.

Too many great roles

She frowns at being 38 but she was actually 39 here.

She gets her beautiful skin from her mother.

OP also loves Joan Jett, so much for his great taste in people. Rossellini's popularity was due entirely to her resemblance to her mother. Isabella can't act and was difficult to cast. She had lush features that photographed well but was no great beauty. That said she has a charming personality and tastes better than Joan Jett.

70 posts and no mention of her half-sister Pia?

She looks like a darker version of her mother and her voice is also quite similar. With that said, she's aged much better than her mother did, think that might be the Italian genes.

Someone here once described her as delightfully batshit.

[quote]OP also loves Joan Jett, so much for his great taste in people.

r70 apparently can't stand Joan Jett. So much for his great taste in people!

[quote]That said she [Isabella] has a charming personality and tastes better than Joan Jett.

Oh, so you've "tasted" Joan Jett AND Isabella Rossellini, have you? LOL!

The formatting skills are lovely R74. Your brand of crazy is always beautifully displayed Janbot.

A skunk crawled up my ass and DIED.

My earrings are Divne. I love caftans too

Hawt

Sorry to be a bump troll, but how was Lynch bad for her? Is David Lynch a bad man?

The title sounds very "What....?" but I think it is one of the best episodes of You Must Remember This.

Late 80's I sat behind her at a AMPAS screening/tribute of her father's landmark film Open City. She was troppo bella and tres cygne.

Her mother was so beautiful. And the studios really knew how to turn on the glam treatment. In Notorious, she's always wearing something striped or sparkling. You can't help but look at her.

[quote] Brynner said she looked like a horse (because he was too vain to wear elevator shoes)

She had severe scoliosis as a child for which she underwent painful surgeries and a long rehab process (you can see a scar running down her back in BLUE VELVET). I suspect this was a pivotal episode of her early life because Ingrid dropped everything to care for her and it was probably one of the few times she had her mother's complete attention. I think her wonderful, rich speaking voice adds immeasurably to her allure. A class act for sure. I remember an interview in which she talked thoughtfully on the model/photographer relationship, which made me realize for the first time that models aren't necessarily dumb and that they serve as muses to photographers and designers.

Love Isabella. I still remember Roger Ebert's review of Blue Velvet. He was angered at how David Lynch directed her, accusing him of misogyny and asking her to do things that were not worthy of her talents and not giving her a better film.

I've always liked her.

Wish she made better movies.

r46, I met Scorsese twice and he is a shrimp.

I always thought she was very beautiful, in a unique way. Very classy and intelligent.

I notice no one has mentioned the clear fact that she cannot act.

Decades ago a maid was on trial for stealing from her clients. She argued that she only stole from the mean ones and pointed out she didn't steal anything from her client Isabella Rossellini who was nice to her.

Graduating with Master's Degree from Hunter. She's fun.

“He put his disease in me”

She also helps train seeing eye dogs!

I remember her in the batshit final season of ALIAS. She was Jennifer Garner’s aunt, I think? Stepmother?

That's hilarious, R90, She DID steal from Grace Hightower and Candace Bergen!

[quote] Love Isabella. I still remember Roger Ebert's review of Blue Velvet. He was angered at how David Lynch directed her, accusing him of misogyny and asking her to do things that were not worthy of her talents and not giving her a better film.

I know Ebert has been deified of late, but it’s kind of amazing how pedestrian his tastes were back in the day. His reviews of the Tim Burton Batman and Batman Returns are hilarious; he bitches that he just doesn’t feel anything for Batman. It doesn’t surprise me that he hated Blue Velvet.

Rossellini is brilliant and haunting in BV. She was also one of the all-time great guest stars on 30 Rock.

[quote]Gotta love those Euro ladies!

LOL, you're so damn middle class and self-loathing.

Ebert lost me when he complained at length about A Taste Of Cherry because he was so distracted that the lead might be gay but he never got an answer. He also blogged multiple times about how he didn't actually watch a movie all the way through but hated it, and people gave him a pass.

His comments about Rossellini in Blue Velvet were sexist, in my opinion, as if she was a frail delicate woman taken advantage of her big mean boyfriend (at the time), which is ridiculous and offensive.

I remember reading about some sort of a crime gang who used to pretend to be domestic workers in NY and targeting celebrities, I cant remember the exact details. DeNiro was one of their victims. They didn't rob Rosseliini because they thought she was a "nice" lady. Lol.

Oops, just saw that someone posted an actual link to what I remembered! Glad to read i remembered it right.

these old whores are goodies

R99 Why does that story warm what's left of my heart? It's so complimentary!

When they were girls, her twin Ingrid must have resented her just a little bit. I mean, look at the contrast.

I also met her around 20 years ago. Like R1 I was surprised by how small she was (besides Julia Roberts, every actor I've met/seen has been much small in person), but I found her stunning, except for her horrible haircut.

R98 So ridiculous. They didn't even start dating until after she was cast. Lynch initially wanted Helen Mirren for the role, but he was introduced to Rossellini through a mutual friend and cast her. Though she didn't have a lot of acting experience at the time, she was very famous and a highly successful model at the time, and Lynch just had a major critical and commercial failure with Dune, so I don't think he had tons of power over her.

R99 I remember the story! And they also said that deNiro's wife was such a pain in the ass.

I once saw her pull Tina Fey's hair on television. Not so nice now, is she?

I thought her name was Isotta, R103, and it turns out we're both right: she's Isotta Ingrid Frieda Giuliana Rossellini!

I know the sisters had a huge falling out when Isabella wrote and performed in a short film a while back where she portrayed her father as a huge naked stomach. Isotta was pissed the hell off. Not sure if they ever reconciled.

R103 - Isabella resembles her mother and her twin resembles her father Roberto Rossellini Sr.

Isabella's brother Roberto Jr. wasn't bad in his youth. He had his own look (photo below).

Isabella's adopted son Roberto (named after her father and brother). He has nice features.

Not a bad looking family.

I have seen a few interviews with the daughters. They are always pretty honest about some of Ingrid's maternal shortcomings, but in general seem to really have fond memories of her. I think it helped that Ingrid did not try to come up with excuses and was honest with them and they understood what drover her.

If you look at still photos the resemblance to her mother is not as strong, but when you combine her looks with cadence of her voice is when you get the strong reminder of her mother.

She had a decent career, but seemed like she was destined for a bigger film career at one point. I am thinking she did what she wanted to do and did not care if she was in the biggest movies of the year.

She was a DL icon from Death Becomes Her onward.

Arch!

Sigourney Weaver is another favorite of mine - so here they are together.

Isabella's half sister Pia Lindstrom was pretty too. Swipe for photos of her with her mother Ingrid. I don't know how Ingrid could have left her young daughter and run away with Roberto Sr.

Ingrid's three daughters.

Her first husband kept Ingrid away from their daughter for years, R114, which was easy to do because of all the bad publicity she'd received for the affair with Rossellini.

R114 I think Pia Lindstom was on a news show? I don't know if she was an anchor or was a film critic? That was a long time ago in the NYC area and forget the channel. I'm thinking channel 4 (NBC).

R117, I was going to say the same.

I don't think she's a bad actress at all. Maybe limited, but not bad. I've always at least believed her in everything she's been in. I think her best role was in Death Becomes Her. I can't imagine anyone else in that role. She's in it for maybe 10 minutes and nearly walks away with the whole movie. She held her own up against Streep and commands the screen during their scenes, so I definitely wouldn't say she's a bad actress.

If the movie were made today, that would be Eva Green's role. She's currently cornered the market on playing a sexy witch.

R109 I don't fully agree. That recent video with Rampling (above) shows Isabella with the same voice, demeanour and seeming-intelligence of her mother.

But it also shows she has her father's rather wide head and beaky nose.

R5 That video is a creepy display of two contrasting persona.

Rampling with her dead face and long experience of playing passive, somnolent women for half a century barely has the energy to vary her vocal expression or even raise her eyelids to look at her interlocutor.

Rosselllini with her wondrously-expressive face, her mother's instant smiles and constant engagement. She knows how to communicate even when she's not speaking.

R31 She had recently given birth. I thought it was cruel of Lynch to have her do a nude scene when her breasts looked so mismatched.

I've always thought she was an incredibly interesting, likeable and (in her own strange way) down-to-earth person. You'd think their upbringing might have been erratic and fucked them up, but I've never heard the Bergman-Rossellini kids say anything really bad about their parents. Quite the opposite.

I adore her. She was so lovable in a movie called Cousins, with Ted Danson believe it or not. She’s so quirky and charming.

I think she was the only woman back then who got hired to be the face of a major cosmetics corporation at age 30, and stayed on for 13 years until she was considered "too old".

My friend had dinner once with her and David Lynch, back in the day. She said Lynch was a neurotic oddball, but Isabella was lovely but also a little reigned in by Lynch, so to speak. My friend was not surprised when she heard they broke up.

True story!

Ingrid was so sick and tired of the falsity of Tinsel Town that she impulsively rushed out and flew to Italy to met this unknown director.

Ten years later she realised her mistake. She thought she was meeting director Vittorio de Sica but she had impulsively met and married the wrong man. Rossellini had the nicer surname but was fatter and rather charmless.

Saw a show on Broadway at The Royale Theatre which has a hidden stage door, it's down an alley and around the corner. I was standing in the ally while my friend went backstage to say bye to a relative. As I was standing there, I dropped my Playbill. It landed flat open with a two page Lancome centerfold ad with Isabella. As stood up from picking it up I see I'm standing right next to her. We looked at each other with a laugh, like well that doesn't happen everyday.

Well R129, that's almost a wondrous as my first day in Paris.

I was enjoying a croissant in the Avenue des Champs-Élysées to the sound of a concertina band.

And as I looked up who should I see but Leslie Caron!

Rocky Road. Two Scoops.

She came to Houston in the 80s for a Rosellini retrospective at the Rice Media Center. A friend wanted to see Joan of Arc at the Stake, so off we went. I didn't especially like it, but I liked that she was there to represent her father.

[quote] I didn't especially like it

All of her father's films were unpopular while Vittorio De Sica's films were loved. And, of course, Vittorio appeared on camera as well as behind.