Marianna Franceschi is a famous singer and actress who is best known for her roles in Italian films. Born in Genoa, she has at various times had two different nationalities: one is Italian and the other is Portuguese. Mariannina was married to Piero Lombroso, the former Prime Minister of Portugal and after his death she was married to the German industrialist and philanthropist, Count von Moltke. The couple had six children and raised them as Italian nationals.
Having converted to Catholicism, Marianna Franceschi subsequently worked as a concert pianist and singer in both Genoa and Salzburg, where she developed a reputation for her piano playing. It was whilst she was performing in these positions that her career really began to prosper, with a string of well-known opera roles which began in the late twenties. It was this early stage of her career, which brought her to the attention of Italian directors who were then prepared to hand over a role in one of their operas. This was a role that was to make her a fortune, since many directors saw her talent and wanted her to star in their movies. She never lost interest in acting and went on to voice several Italian movies throughout the coming decades, including the animated opera, La Perdido.
Over the years her career did become somewhat of a flop, with the advent of the mini cinema offering a variety of short films; however, in the eighties she managed to score a great deal of film successes, including the hit comedy The Secret; however, it was The Deer Hunter, which would help define her career and brings her to the attention of Italian directors once more. Some of her later films included some great outings which nevertheless fell short of the achievements made by earlier works. One of these films was Romance, which would feature Christopher Walken as the main protagonist, and which was to be released after the end of the seventies. Her final major movie would be Viva Zapata, which was to be released shortly before her death.