About the only rebellion left for Asia Argento was blissful, normal domesticity– the final frontier for an actress whose early career included starring roles in three of father Dario Argento’s horror movies.”My latest vice? Learning to cook risotto,’ quipped Italy’s favorite bad girl, 26, who is expecting her first child in June 2001 from singer Morgan of techno-band Bluvertigo. Asia was followed tolerantly in the Italian press through her various tattoos, dark-lady costumes and ambiguous relationships–facets of the public persona of an actress, screenwriter and director of some talent who has worked with Abel Ferrara, Cristina Comencini and Carlo Verdone.That is, until Asia announced she was to become a mamma–and the papers filled with disapproving reports about her climbing a rumbling Mt. Etna, a hit & run car accident and TV appearances with an ‘overexposed’ pregnant tummy. “As a pregnant woman in the public eye I truly feel like a freak, for the first time in my life,” she told newsweekly L’Espresso. “Fault or merit of Italian men who think pregnant women should be recluses.”Her remark was a response to outrage expressed by one of Italy’s reigning grandfathers of journalism, Enzo Biagi, who called her behavior “obscene” for a woman expecting a child. We expect she’ll keep pushing boundaries—as an actress or as a mother.

Related resources:

Asia On Film

Stendhal Syndrome
Asia plays a somewhat unconvincing detective who becomes a victim of the rapist she’s investigating.
The last film she was directed in by father Dario.
La palombella Rossa

Offbeat comedy–starring Nanni Moretti as a politician/water polo player. This time Asia isn’t directed by her father, but she plays the director’s daughter just the same.

A photo gallery, with 75 of her former incarnations.

Bluvertigo-official site for the her beau’s band–think angst-ridden Devo, in Italian..
Check out their latest effort "Assenzio" which had the dubious honor of last place at the San Remo songfest.

Alba Parietti, Italy’s poster girl for pneumatic plastic surgery, has gone from show girl (she can neither sing nor dance) to actress (a semi-erotic flop called “the Butcher”) to television host. Bored with being the dishy dunce on sport shows, Alba has gone serious. La Parietti has traded her bottle-blond mane for ebony locks, dumped Christopher Lambert in favor of businessman Jody Vender and decided to talk about sex. Despite the amount of jiggling flesh present in Italian tv, talking about sex is taboo and has meant sudden death for anyone brave enough deal with the subject matter. Will her “Capriccio” mean the end of the “Alba Nazionale?”

Not surprisingly, 23-year-old beauty Manuela Arcuri won the title of “most clicked.” Arcuri, who hails from Latina, has never made her charms a secret: her latest mostly undressed calendar was an instant sell out. She was crowned the most wanted woman on the web recently by newsweekly Panorama, swiping the title from any number of starlettes with similar attributes. The actress, most recently seen in film “A Ruota Libera,” doesn’t have her own website–her popularity is based entirely on pirate photos filched by hard-breathing fans.
Her start was typical showbiz smoke-and-mirrors–she got noticed when her agent planted a story in the Italian gossip mags that she was “engaged” to super-wealthy shiek Mohammad Al-Habtoor, one-time flame of Naomi Campbell. Since then she’s had “blink & you missed it” parts in any number of comic films with directors like Carlo Verdone and Leonardo Pieraccioni.
Her latest endevor, co-hosting a popular TV show on soccer “Mai dire Gol,” has been a major disappointment to her fans. The sultry stunner is infinitely better in pictures–anytime she walks or talks, the fantasy is Over.
Related resources:
http://home.mondadori.com/panorama/calendari/
Her 2001 calendar with backstage shots and interview.
www.maidireweb.it
Official site for the TV show.

Controversial Archbishop Emanuel Milingo, who risked excommunication after marrying a fellow Moon-follower in New York City last May, seems to have patched things up with the Vatican, but there are some authorities which always have the final word. Milingo made a surprise visit to the Pope, vacationing at Castel Gandolfo, starting talks that prevented his estrangement from the Catholic Church on Aug. 20, 2001. Milingo, however,has no chance of appeal from an everyday authority–traffic cops fined him about $100 for leaving his gray Renault Twingo in a no-parking zone.

Related resources:
www.archbishopmilingo.org
More on Milingo from the official site

Entrepreneur Enrico Forti says he owes a life sentence in a Florida jail to being Italian. “If I were Anglo-Saxon I would’ve never seen the inside of a courtroom,” he told Italian daily La Repubblica. “Here they seem to think a successful Italian is necessarily a member of the Mafia.”

Forti, whose friends call him “Chico,” was convicted of murdering real-estate mogul Anthony “Dale” Pike in Miami on February 16, 1998. Forti, ex-windsurf champ and game show contestant from Trento, was the last person to see Pike alive. In a panic, he told police he hadn’t seen Pike despite the fact the two were at odds over a deal Forti had made with Pike’s father. The misstep cost Forti dearly–he eventually told the truth, was convicted for fraud in the hotel deal, acquitted– and then charged with murder in May 2000.

Friends and family in Italy have recently launched a media blitz to drum up funds for a retrial. Forti, who pleaded not guilty to the shooting death, has been interviewed on radio programs, newspapers, been the benefactor of a windsurf tournament and launched a web site which tells the story from his point of view.His lawyers, who say evidence was circumstantial, hope at the very least to have the life sentence (without possibility of parole) commuted to give Forti, 42, the possibility of serving time in Italy.

The story contains any number of elements worthy of a mystery novel. In 1997, Forti bought the houseboat where the murderer of Gianni Versace, Andrew Cunanan, was found dead. Forti planned to produce a TV documentary on whether Cunanan had committed suicide (as police maintained) or whether he was killed. The houseboat was damaged and eventually destroyed because it was a safety hazard–Forti maintains it was destroyed as a cover up. “You’re the Italian who said the Miami police are corrupt?” Forti recounted. “Now you’ll pay.”

Add to the scene US detective Frank Monte, who sustains Forti was a “troubleshooter” for Versace’s dealings with difficult siblings Santo and Donatella. Monte ascribes his insider knowledge to an investigation he carried out for Versace in 1996 concerning the death of a family associate. As for the murder, police say Pike came to Miami to confront Forti about the sale of a hotel in Ibiza, Spain that the Italian had negotiated with his elderly father. When police questioned Forti, he said Pike never arrived in Miami.

Later he told police he left Pike at a restaurant. After a complicated, month-long trial with an intricate weave of documents and satellite testimony from Spain, Forti was found guilty of first-degree murder in June of 2000.Hard to tell where the truth lies–but Forti’s case seems destined to become another crusade against the US justice system, which Italians deem inhumane and often overly harsh.

After years of battle and public pressure, Italian Silvia Baraldini was granted the right to serve the rest of her sentence in a Roman jail in 1999. For Italians, Baraldini was unjustly jailed for ideological reasons; for US authorities she was a dangerous terrorist. She served 19 years of a 43-year sentence to date, but the controversy continues. Baraldini was granted house arrest by Italian authorities in the spring of 2001 to undergo treatment for breast cancer– despite the seriousness of her illness, the US government insists that she be returned to prison by September.

Related resources:
www.chicoforti.com
“One Chance for Chico” official site, in English & Italian.

www.justice-for-silvia.org
Updates on the Baraldini case. In English.