Saturday 15 September 2007

An Argento question

Dario Argento's mother Elda Luxardo is usually referred to as Brazilian. Her name, however, doesn't sound like it is a Portuguese one. So is she Brazilian-born from a family of Italian extraction? (There is an Italian maraschino drink called Luxardo, after the founder of the distillery which makes it; http://www.figuralminibottles.com/luxardo/luxardo.shtml)

5 comments:

Tim Lucas said...

I don't know anything about the family history, but Argento's mother was the sister of the famous fashion photographer Elio Luxardo, who died in 1969. The photograph of Gianna Maria Canale seen in I VAMPIRI, which causes the sidekick character to fall in love with her at first sight, was the work of Luxardo.

I found this webpage which tells more: http://www.gallerialuxardo.com/History/History.htm

K H Brown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
K H Brown said...

Thanks for this Tim

In your Video Watchdog issue with the Harriet White Medin interview there's a portrait of her, with the Luxardo name on it. Do you know which member of the family would have taken this, or was there a house style that meant it could have been anyone / doesn't really make a difference?

Anonymous said...

In the last decades of 19th century
and mainly after the end of slavery in Brazil (1888), more than 900.000 italian immigrants came to here in search of jobs and a new life. So there's many descendents living in our country. I'm one them. ;)

Tim Lucas said...

I have never seen the work of Elda Luxardo; the photo of Harriet is consistent, style-wise, with the work of Elio Luxardo. As I understand it, Elda was a fashion photographer whereas Elio specialized in portraits and head shots for actors' portfolios.