“IT’S NOT MARILYN”
Rosalina was born in Arcisate, in the Varese province of Italy. Her father was a bricklayer and her mother a homemaker.
Even as a little girl, she was always singing and loved an audience.
Rosalina went to a Catholic public school run by nuns. She wanted to go to university, but her family could not afford the fees.
Instead, at the age of eighteen, Rosalina went to Paris to learn French. She stayed with her uncle, who was also a bricklayer. “He came to pick me up with a truckful of bricks. We stopped at a bistro, and he let me taste the champagne. It was then that I heard Edith Piaf singing ‘La Vie en Rose’ on the radio. I was enchanted – and I decided to study opera singing.”
To pay for her lessons, Rosalina worked for a lacemaker.
Returning to Italy, she became a professional dancer and singer in a chorus line.
Rosalina took part in an international ‘Marilyn Monroe Lookalike’ contest. The iconic American actress was very popular at the time and was constantly in the headlines. Rosalina did look like her – and won the competition.
This led to her first film appearance – a small part in a comedy film, ‘I Pinguini Ci Guardaro’ (Penguins Look at Us). Her next part was in a comedy drama called ‘Tobia la Candina Spia’, made by famed Italian producers, Garinei and Giovannini.
Rosalina’s big breakthrough came with Marcello Marchesi’s variety show on the RAI television channel.
Marchesi noticed Rosalina’s similarity to Marilyn Monroe. When he told her this was why she had been cast, she said, “I am a brunette”.
He retorted, “Tomorrow, we will make you a blonde.”
Her TV role gave her enormous success in Italy and made her a household name. She began to appear on the cover of magazines such as Le Ore and L’Europeo – the latter with the headline ‘It’s not Marilyn’. She got the nickname ‘Marilina’.
Rosalina even started doing film work in Great Britain. She came to London to film a coffee commercial. There, she met the actress known as the ‘English Marilyn Monroe’, Diana Dors. They hit it off immediately, becoming close friends. “Diana was taller than me and she was beautiful.”
However, it was Rosalina and not Diana Dors that appeared on the front cover of the Daily Mirror.
Diana invited Rosalina to a party, where she introduced her to conductor and impresario (and multi-millionaire), Jack Hylton. He was nicknamed the ‘British King of Jazz’.
“I had hired a dress that resembled those worn by Monroe, but it was enough. It was love at first sight.”
Jack wooed Rosalina with gifts of an Alfa Romeo sports car and £50,000 worth of jewellery, as well as the promise of holidays at his luxury villa in the South of France. The couple started a lengthy affair, even though he was thirty-five years older than her.
They bought a house in Savile Row in London, number three – once owned by Emma Hamilton, the lover of Lord Nelson.
At this time, Jack had just been appointed Head of Entertainment at the London franchise of ITV.
Jack started trying to control Rosalina’s career. It caused derision that Rosalina began to appear in every single television show that he produced.
Nevertheless, she did work with the Crazy Gang (including Flanagan and Allen) and alongside Terry Thomas.
Jack got her a primetime slot on British television, on Friday evenings, for the ‘Rosalina Neri Show’.
It was not a success. She struggled to master the English language, and the show was withdrawn after just nine episodes.
On one occasion, due to her language difficulties, Rosalina missed a flight at London airport to Milan, as she could not understand the boarding announcement.
Jack also tried to make her an opera singer. Her first public appearance was at the Adelphi Theatre in London, where she struggled to reach the high notes. A critic said, “Her tiny voice sounded like someone singing through a peashooter.”
The Liverpool Echo said Rosalina was, ‘Lovely to look at but rather ludicrous to listen to.’
Rosalina subsequently changed her stage name (for singing only), becoming Angela Baldi. It was a name she kept for a few years.
However, she used her time wisely, taking proper singing lessons.
Meanwhile, Jack was taking Rosalina with him on his business trips.
It was in New York that Rosalina met Marilyn Monroe for the one and only time.
Monroe was outside a nightclub as Jack and Rosalina were going in. Marilyn was extremely drunk and was disheveled. Rosalina said, “Even in those conditions, she was much more beautiful than me.”
Marilyn saw her lookalike and said to Rosalina, “Oh my god! What’s your name?”
Marilyn then promised Rosalina that she would contact her husband, Arthur Miller, and get her some film work. No contact was ever made.
These were the only words the American star ever said to Rosalina.
Whilst there, Rosalina also got to meet President John F. Kennedy. Jack was invited to a formal dinner and took Rosalina as his partner. He did not realise it was a male only event, so she was the only woman there.
Kennedy, famously, had an affair with Marilyn Monroe. Many years later, because she looked so similar, she was asked if the President had made a pass at her. She replied, “No – he was the perfect gentleman. But then, he probably knew how jealous Jack got.”
She did comment that both her and Kennedy were the only people at the dinner to choose Provencal Frogs – so they did have something in common.
Marilyn Monroe died in 1962. After that, Rosalina got no work as her lookalike.
The following year, Jack and Rosalina were staying at his villa at the Cap d’Antibes. He announced he was going back to London, alone, to visit his ailing mother.
Whilst she was in the villa, Rosalina got a phone call from Jack’s private secretary. It told her that Jack had married the Australian model, Beverley Prowse. Rosalina was stunned. “I was left alone like a dog.”
Rosalina was not a fool. She had never relied on Jack’s money and had saved enough of her own to buy a luxury flat in Milan.
Surprisingly, Rosalina re-started her affair with Jack, and eventually became pregnant. She had a daughter called Angela, who was always known as ‘Coco’.
Shortly after Angela was born, Jack died suddenly of a heart attack, aged 72. He left everything to his son from a previous marriage. Nothing was left to his daughters – or to Rosalina.
Rosalina relaunched her career, both as an opera singer and an actress.
This was when her singing career really took off. She sang at the Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales. Although billed as Angela Baldi, when she got a standing ovation from nine thousand people she declared her real name. The pseudonym was never used again.
Rosalina became a top-quality soprano, appearing at such places like La Scala in Milan, Regio in Parma and the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome.
However, acting was her real love. She appeared in many television programmes, including re-launching her own show, which ran for four years on Italian TV.
In later years Rosalina appeared in a TV drama called, ‘The Betrothed’, and for five years in a sitcom called ‘Finally Alone’.
Her great passion was the theatre. “I could have been a lady, but the theatre always came first.”
Rosalina used her money wisely. “I would have acted for free, but I invested the money I earned well. I redid the bathroom and the dining room…For me, the daughter of a ‘magutt’ (bricklayer), home is everything.”
In her eighties, Rosalina had a long spell working at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan. There, she became extremely close friends with the director, Georgio Strehler. She would thank him each year by giving him a roast turkey for Christmas.
“Every Christmas, I gave him a stuffed turkey. The last time, I broke the earthenware pan when I cooked it. It seemed to me to be a very bad omen, and in fact he died the very next day. All gone. When you get old, you lose friends along the way.”
Rosalina had a seventy-year career on stage – with no scandal attached to her. At the age of 92, she was awarded the Enriquez Lifetime Achievement Award. “I didn’t expect it at all…I am flattered. But do I deserve it?
Rosalina never married. “My solitude is a wonderful thing.” She added, “Men made me suffer so much, it wasn’t worth it.”
“I do what I want, when and how I want. I am free.”
On what would have been Marilyn Monroe’s ninetieth birthday, Rosalina was asked about the actress. “I don’t think she would have accepted to age in public. She had to stay beautiful for everyone.”
Rosalina’s last appearance on stage was for a one-woman show, reflecting on her life. It was called ‘False Memories of a Real Life’. She had just two props; a red balloon and a toy Ferrari on a string, to represent the sports car she had once driven.
Rosalina died at home in Milan.
RIP – Rosalina Impersonates Phenomenon
