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Gli adorabili: Miss Fallaci alla conquista dell'America

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"Ho portato a Hollywood una valigia di spaghetti per Sofia Loren. Glieli ho portati da Roma, me li aveva dati sua madre, e credo che pochi avvenimenti abbiano eccitato in queste ultime settimane il frivolo sobborgo di Los Angeles quanto la notizia che una giornalista italiana aveva portato gli spaghetti a Sofia." Tutto questo accadeva nel giugno del 1957, quando Oriana Fallaci si divideva tra Roma, New York e Los Angeles per raccontare la "fabbrica dei divi". Con sguardo disincantato e l'inconfondibile stile caustico e irriverente della sua penna, Miss Fallaci, come l'apostrofava Orson Welles, a differenza di altri suoi colleghi, "sa nascondere la giornalista più agguerrita sotto la più ingannevole delle maschere femminili". Sono gli anni in cui gli occhi del mondo inseguono i nuovi miti di celluloide, ma solo lei riesce a descrivere la disperata umanità di questi divi fatti apposta per essere adorati. Da James Dean a Yul Brynner, da Ava Gardner a Ingrid Bergman, Miss Fallaci si aggira per Hollywood con aria sconcertata. "Le cose più strane possono avvenire in questa città" scrive. "Qui le case sembrano avere pareti di vetro. Non potete fare un gesto o dire una parola senza che gli altri lo sappiano. Vivere a Hollywood è come vivere con un microfono nascosto in ogni stanza e le macchine da presa della tv puntate in direzione della camera da letto." Ma sotto l'aspetto spregiudicato Hollywood è conformista fino all'eccesso e questi straordinari reportage diventano l'occasione per smascherare le contraddizioni della società americana, in bilico tra moralismo ed emancipazione dove "il whisky si beve a casa, quando non vede nessuno".

337 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 28, 2023

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About the author

Oriana Fallaci

57 books1,574 followers
Oriana Fallaci was born in Florence, Italy. During World War II, she joined the resistance despite her youth, in the democratic armed group "Giustizia e Libertà". Her father Edoardo Fallaci, a cabinet maker in Florence, was a political activist struggling to put an end to the dictatorship of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini. It was during this period that Fallaci was first exposed to the atrocities of war.

Fallaci began her journalistic career in her teens, becoming a special correspondent for the Italian paper Il mattino dell'Italia centrale in 1946. Since 1967 she worked as a war correspondent, in Vietnam, for the Indo-Pakistani War, in the Middle East and in South America. For many years, Fallaci was a special correspondent for the political magazine L'Europeo and wrote for a number of leading newspapers and Epoca magazine. During the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre prior to the 1968 Summer Olympics, Fallaci was shot three times, dragged down stairs by her hair, and left for dead by Mexican forces. According to The New Yorker, her former support of the student activists "devolved into a dislike of Mexicans":

The demonstrations by immigrants in the United States these past few months "disgust" her, especially when protesters displayed the Mexican flag. "I don't love the Mexicans," Fallaci said, invoking her nasty treatment at the hands of Mexican police in 1968. "If you hold a gun and say, 'Choose who is worse between the Muslims and the Mexicans,' I have a moment of hesitation. Then I choose the Muslims, because they have broken my balls."

In the late 1970s, she had an affair with the subject of one of her interviews, Alexandros Panagoulis, who had been a solitary figure in the Greek resistance against the 1967 dictatorship, having been captured, heavily tortured and imprisoned for his (unsuccessful) assassination attempt against dictator and ex-Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos. Panagoulis died in 1976, under controversial circumstances, in a road accident. Fallaci maintained that Panagoulis was assassinated by remnants of the Greek military junta and her book Un Uomo (A Man) was inspired by the life of Panagoulis.

During her 1972 interview with Henry Kissinger, Kissinger agreed that the Vietnam War was a "useless war" and compared himself to "the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse".Kissinger later wrote that it was "the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press."

She has written several novels uncomfortably close to raw reality which have been bestsellers in Italy and widely translated. Fallaci, a fully emancipated and successful woman in the man's world of international political and battlefront journalism, has antagonized many feminists by her outright individualism, her championship of motherhood, and her idolization of heroic manhood. In journalism, her critics have felt that she has outraged the conventions of interviewing and reporting. As a novelist, she shatters the invisible diaphragm of literariness, and is accused of betraying, or simply failing literature.

Fallaci has twice received the St. Vincent Prize for journalism, as well as the Bancarella Prize (1971) for Nothing, and So Be It; Viareggio Prize (1979), for Un uomo: Romanzo; and Prix Antibes, 1993, for Inshallah. She received a D.Litt. from Columbia College (Chicago). She has lectured at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Harvard University, and Columbia University. Fallaci’s writings have been translated into 21 languages including English, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Greek, Swedish, Polish, Croatian and Slovenian.

Fallaci was a life-long heavy smoker. She died on September 15, 2006 in her native Florence from breast cancer.

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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
Profile Image for Marika_reads.
641 reviews479 followers
August 31, 2024
4.5/5

Słuchajcie, jestem zakochana w tym jak pisała Fallaci, a to dopiero teksty z początku jej kariery. Dziennikarka kojarząca się głównie z polityką w „Uwielbianych” pisze o Hollywood lat 50-tych i sprawiła, że natychmiast chcę się przenieść w czasie.
Zaczyna grzecznie od melancholijnej Audrey Hepburn, osóbką z niewysłowionym smutkiem w oczach. Potem moi drodzy wchodzi awanturniczy James Dean, szatan, w którym zakochałam się po kilku akapitach (potem się niby odkochałam, ale w prawdziwym życiu nie byłoby to proste). Jedna z niewielu gwiazd świata filmu, która po tragicznej śmierci zyskała na popularności, co w ówczesnym Hollywood się nie zdarzało. Czuły barbarzyńca, tęskniący za zmarłą matką, porzucony przez ojca, niezwykle wrażliwy, karmiący się swoją rozpaczą, pracowity, autodestrukcyjny, przerażony samotnością i turbo obrażalski. Największa drama queen ever.
Dalej razem z Fallaci biegamy po Nowym Jorku za Marilyn Monroe, i pogoń ta stała się tak sensacyjna, że zainteresowała światek dziennikarski, który to właśnie z Fallaci chciał przeprowadzać wywiady. Czy ostatecznie udało im się spotkać? A to już musicie same się przekonać, kto tu kogo na koniec wystawił. PS. Marilyn też kocham.
Kolejną gwiazdą jest Ava Gardner i mimo tego, że z dotychczasowych sław opisywanych przez dziennikarkę znałam ją najmniej, to stała się moją ulubienicą. To dopiero była diablica, nie bojąca się mówić co myśli, wiedząca czego chce, nieokrzesana i biegająca po przyjęciach na bosaka, bo wtedy czuła się wolna i przypominało jej to wiejskie dzieciństwo. W dodatku była uwikłana w love hate relację z Sinatrą, o której chce czytać więcej!
W drugiej części książki zebrane są krótsze teksty o kilku innych gwiazdach czy tematach, np. o tym jak Fallaci przywiozła do Los Angeles dla Sophii Loren walizkę spaghetti ręcznie robionego przez matkę aktorki i tym znowu reporterka wzbudziła zainteresowanie mediów. I Joan Collins - love.
Mam nadzieję, że powyższe pokazało jak bardzo mi się podobało, jak mocno polecam i jak stałam się ogromną fanką pióra Oriany. Czytajcie!
Profile Image for Gabril.
1,049 reviews258 followers
March 25, 2024
Tra il 1954 e il 1959 Oriana Fallaci realizza questi indimenticabili ritratti dei divi holliwoodiani più amati: James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, Marylin Monroe, Ava Gardner, Yul Brynner, Ingrid Bergman, ma anche Sofia Loren e Anna Magnani…
L’agile e arguta penna della Fallaci rende questa galleria un godibile, ironico, a volte amaro florilegio dedicato a personaggi intramontabili, riportandoci il sapore di anni che, invece, sono irrimediabilmente tramontati.
Profile Image for 365_ksiazek.
622 reviews44 followers
October 25, 2024
Teksty składające się na ten zbiór ukazały się na łamach popularnego włoskiego tygodnika - „L’Europeo” w latach 1954-1959.
Oriana Fallaci ląduje w Hollywood i z właściwą sobie przenikliwością zajmuje się największymi gwizdami Fabryki Gwiazd, uwielbianymi przez miliony. Zmierzy się w wielkimi sławami. Napisała o: Audrey Hepburn, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, Frank Sinatra, Brigitt Bardot, Sophia Loren, Ingrid Bergmn, a nawet Joan Collins.
Jest tam życia zawodowe i prywatne. To trochę taki elegancki Pudelek, bo Fallaci jest fachowcem i robi to z wielkim wdziękiem. Są informacji biograficzne i smaczki.
Czyta się znakomicie.
Profile Image for Paula.
576 reviews24 followers
December 19, 2024
uwielbiam czytać o gwiazdach starego Hollywoodu, ich życiu prywatnym, zawirowaniach i przebojach, na punkcie których współczesny pudelek by oszalał. Oriana Fallaci sprawnie lawiruje między plotkami, pogłoskami a faktami, jednocześnie przemycając swoje opinie i odczucia. największa frajda z czytania tych artykułów tkwi w tym, że były pisane w tamtych latach, więc same w sobie stanowią dokument epoki - razem z dorobkiem artystycznym opisywanych aktorów i aktorek
Profile Image for Zyta Czyta.
122 reviews2 followers
September 14, 2024
Bardzo dużo ciekawostek i faktów z życia gwiazd kina złotej ery Hollywood. Mój ulubieniec James Dean chyba skradł też reporterskie serce Oriany, bo poświęciła mu kawał książki. Świetna pozycja dla fanów kina!
14 reviews
September 17, 2025
Adoro il modo in cui scrive ma non conoscendo affatto attori etc di Hollywood a volte l’ho trovato lento
Profile Image for KozackaCzytelnia.
171 reviews
October 18, 2025
Te teksty to dowód na to, że nawet o życiu znanych osób można pisać bez taniej sensacji i dramatyzmu. Czytało się niezwykle przyjemnie.

Mam apetyt na więcej Oriany. Będę nadrabiać na pewno!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews

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