During the 1950s and 1960s bosomy, scintillating, dark-haired Tunisian leading lady Sandra Milo played bored patricians, manipulative mistresses and other enticing ladies of questionable morals with typical sensuous flare in scores of Italian and French productions. Born Elena Liliana Greco in Tunis in 1935, she made her film debut (renamed Sandra Milo) at age 20 co-starring tauntingly alongside Alberto Sordi in Lo scapolo (1955). For the next full decade, she unleashed her fiery figure on a number of tempted male players in scores of saucy comedies, feisty costumers and steamy melodramas. Such films included Nero’s Weekend (1956), Les aventures d’Arsène Lupin (1957), Le miroir a deux faces (1958) [The Mirror Has Two Faces], Totò nella luna (1958) [Toto in the Moon], Il Generale Della Rovere (1959) [General della Rovere], and the period comedy romp The Green Mare’s Nest (1959) starring the great French actor Bourvil, which served as the inspiration to the bawdy classic “Tom Jones.”
Ms. Milo appeared to fine advantage in two of Fellini’s greatest masterpieces – Federico Fellini’s 8½ (1963) and Juliet of the Spirits (1965). She personified the aloof Italian temptress opposite Europe’s most virile, passionate leading men — Vittorio Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Sorel, etc. She left films in 1968 and did not return until a decade later, now and then in severe-looking characters – and often blonde.
