Pier Angeli is "Teresa"! starring John Ericson!

Sometimes your first film will be the film that all your other films will be judged against, which can be a terrible burden. For Pier Angeli this adage would prove to be unfortunately, true.Pier Angeli was brought to Hollywood in 1951 as part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's attempt for the European market since continental screen types were becoming popular. Pier Angeli's ethereal beauty soon tagged her as the new "Ingrid Bergman" Director Fred Zinnemann, who directed her in her first American film, MGM's Teresa (1951), said of her, "This girl can climb to the pinnacle and become one of today's reigning stars of her generation." The demure Italian beauty with the luminous sensitivity and a radiance that the camera adored seemed headed for cinema stardom when everything went awry. Her emotional involvements and marital difficulties forced her to rue the day when she decided to pursue a career in acting against her father's wishes.She was born Anna Maria Pierangeli on the island Sardinia in Cagliari on June 19, 1932, twenty minutes later her twin sister arrived, Maria Luisa, who would likewise go to Hollywood and become an actress under the screen name of Marisa Pavan (who is still with us). Their mother had been an amateur actress who encouraged her twin daughters to become actresses.After her father, who vehemently objected to his daughters show business careers, had passed away, Pier, sister Maria and their mother moved to Hollywood where MGM gave her the advantage of their publicity department. She became a very popular cover girl and was named a "Star of Tomorrow." and for her performance in Teresa, Pier received a Golden Globe Award for "Young Star of the Year." MGM decided that her surname would become two names thus Pier Angeli was born. After Teresa MGM starred her in films that slowly increased her appeal. Pier starred with Stewart Granger in The Light Touch, (1951) and with Gene Kelly in the The Devil Makes Three (1952). In the The Story of Three Loves (1953), she was cast in the Equilibrium segment where she plays a young trapeze artist who falls in love with Kirk Douglas. Pier then starred with Ricardo Montalban and Yvonne De Carlo in Sombrero (1953). Pier and these films received good notices and the public took to her and liked her. The MGM executives expected her to become a major star. Her best friend on the MGM lot was Debbie Reynolds, who taught her American slang and Pier's frequent escorts were Kirk Douglas and James Dean.All this speculation ended with her front page wedding to Vic Damone on November 24, 1954. But little did anybody know that Pier Angeli had fallen hopelessly in love with James Dean the man she would later claim was her soul mate. Her controlling, devoutly Catholic mother disapproved of Dean because he was not Catholic and she did not approve of his "Bad Boy" screen image. Her mother encouraged her to marry Italian-American crooner Vic Damone. Pier Angeli gave birth to heir son, Perry (he was named in honor of singer Perry Como) on August 21, 1955, just a month before Dean's fatal car accident. Her marriage to Vic Damone was a series of much-publicized emotional separations and reconciliations, with Damone blaming his "meddlesome" mother-in-law for most of their difficulties. In 1957, they separated and were divorced on December 18, 1958.

By now Pier Angeli had moved back to Europe where most of her work was now located. After her divorce Pier starred in The Vintage (1957, MGM) that costarred Mel Ferrer and Michele Morgan. Her last film under her MGM contract was in Merry Andrew (1958, MGM) playing a circus girl who marries Danny Kaye.In 1961, Pier married Italian bandleader Armando Travajoli. He was fifteen years older then Pier. Her second son Howard Andrea (nicknamed Popino) was born on January 8, 1963.There were rumors of tax problems and poverty, with her sister, Marisa Pavan, and Marisa's husband actor Jean Pierre Aumont, coming to her rescue. Presumably penniless and alone in 1971, she told the press, "It would be better if I was already dead. I can't go on anymore." A few months later she arrived in Hollywood and was welcomed back by her best friend from her MGM days Debbie Reynolds and Debbie's best friend Agnes Moorehead. Reynolds set out to help secure film work and with renewed optimism, Pier told the press, "Life is beautiful. I am very happy to be back. Maybe I'll be before the cameras soon."But it was not meant to be, on September 10, 1971 Pier either passed away from anaphylactic shock after being given a tranquilizer by her doctor or an accidental overdose of barbiturates (they don't know for sure), she was 39 years old.Her first son that she had with husband Vic Damone, Perry Rocco Luigi Farinola Damone, unfortunately, died on December 9, 2014 of lymphoma in Scottsdale, Arizona he was 59 years old.