Valeria Golino

Valeria Golino (born 22 October 1965) is an Italian actress and film director. She is best known to English-language audiences for her roles in Rain Man, Big Top Pee-wee, and the two Hot Shots! films. In addition to David di Donatello, Silver Ribbon, Golden Ciak and Italian Golden Globe awards, she is one of four actresses to have twice won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival. Early life Golino was born on born 22 October 1965 in Naples, Italy, the daughter of an Italian father who was a Germanist scholar, and a Greek mother, Lalla, who was a painter. One of her grandmothers was Egyptian-French. She grew up in an "artistic household", and after her parents split up, was raised alternating between Athens and Sorrento (near Naples). Golino is the niece of the journalist Enzo Golino at L'Espresso, and her brother is a musician. When she was a girl, her mother frequently took her to the cinema, and she quickly became interested in films. In spite of this, though, she never thought about pursuing a film career until she made her first movie. Instead, she wanted to be a cardiologist. Valeria was diagnosed with scoliosis at age 11, and she had to have a steel rod implanted in her back for five years. She remained in the care of a surgeon in Chicago for six months, where she learned to speak English. At age 14, she started to work as a fashion model in Athens, Milan, London, and Los Angeles. She was in TV commercials for beer, perfume, and cosmetics, and she modeled swimsuits and blue jeans. Being an unfocused student, she dropped out of high school after acting in her first movie. Career 1983–1987 Golino never formally studied acting. Her career started by chance when her uncle Enzo received a phone call from the director Lina Wertmüller, who was searching for a young girl for her movie, and encouraged Golino to go to Wertmuller's house to meet her.