Veronica Lazăr

Veronica Lazăr (6 October 1938 – 8 June 2014) was a Romanian-born Italian actress. Lazăr was born in Bucharest in 1938. She graduated from the Caragiale Academy of Theatrical Arts and Cinematography (where she also obtained a degree in psychology, which she practiced until 1994, dealing mainly in couples therapy) and subsequently played roles in Romanian theatre [notably a run of Right You Are (if you think so) in 1963-64].

She fled her home country to escape communism and eventually settled in Italy in 1965. She managed to learn the Italian language in only a few weeks and had planned to move on to the United States or Israel, but became entranced with Rome. There, she met and married Italian actor Adolfo Celi with whom she had two children, director Leonardo Celi and actress Alessandra Celi.

She made her screen debut as Marlon Brando's deceased wife in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (1972), and also appeared in some of the director's subsequent films, La Luna (1979), The Sheltering Sky (1990), and Besieged (1998). Lazăr is probably best known internationally for her role as the demonic Mater Tenebrarum in Dario Argento's Inferno (1980), as well as the ill-fated Martha in Lucio Fulci's The Beyond (1981).