Trivia

Had one daughter with Carlo Alberto Chiesa.

Daughter of composer Pippo Barzizza, sister of producer Renzo Barzizza.

Her mother was the composer Tatina Salesi (who used the nom de plume T. Saltina).

Best known in her early film work as sidekick to the Italian star comedian Toto.

A preeminent diva of Italian theatrical revues from the mid-40s to the mid-50s.

Longtime partner of actor Pelos La Capria.

She returned to the theater only in the early nineties, again in comedies such as La pulce nell'orecchio directed by Gigi Proietti , or Arsenico e Vecchi Merletti by Joseph Kesselring , directed by Mario Monicelli .

Following her stage success, Barzizza also started a busy film career in the comedic genre, often teaming with Totò.

In 1953 Barzizza married the screenwriter and director Carlo Alberto Chiesa, and following the birth of their daughter Carlotta she retired from showbusiness. In 1960 the couple were involved in a car accident and Chiesa died shortly after under the knife.

Starting from the mid-1970s she made sporadic appearances in films and on television.

In 1955-56 she had success with the musical comedy Valentina , the love story of two lovers who jump forward in time.

In 1960, at the age of only 31, she decided to interrupt her career in the brilliant theater following the death of her husband, the television director Carlo Alberto Chiesa , in a road accident on 3 June 1960 on the Via Aurelia . [3] For some years she devoted herself totally to her only daughter; she was then romantically linked to the builder Enzo Villoresi. Following advice in the early 1960s, she founded a dubbing company, dedicating herself to this activity, both as an entrepreneur and as an artistic director.

In 1955, she starred in "Valentina", which is considered the first genuine stage musical comedy produced in Italy.

At the beginning Pippo Barzizza was against his daughter's theatrical activity, it was Erminio Macario who launched her into the world of theater after Barzizza had finished her high school studies. The great actor personally asked Isa's father about her to make her debut in a magazine of hers. The father accepted on the condition that Isa was always followed by a governess and so she was she.

She was an Italian actress whose career spanned over 60 years.

She made her professional debut while still being a high school student, notably working with the stage companies led by Ruggero Ruggeri, Elsa Merlini and by the brothers Eduardo, Peppino and Titina De Filippo.

Widowed, Barzizza ran a company of dubbing and production of television series.

In the 1951-52 season she worked with Garinei and Giovannini who paid homage to her great beauty and easy-going sense of humor in magazines such as Gran baldoria , which met with great public success.

Perhaps the only leading role she played was in "Viva la revue! " from 1953, where she sang a blues in a fatal black satin dress with a slit.

She also ventured in the years 1951 and 1952 into prose theater by reciting William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night directed by Renato Castellani .

Barzizza had her breakout in 1946, when during a visit to her father she was noted by Erminio Macario who chose her for the revue Follie d'Amleto. In a few years she established herself as a star in the revue genre, working several times with Macario, Totò and Wanda Osiris.

Equipped with an attractive physique and a breezy irony , she very soon became one of the darlings of Italian post-war light and musical theater.

On January 3, 1954, the day when the official programs of Italian television began, Rai broadcast the one-act play by Carlo Goldoni Osteria della posta in which Barzizza was the leading actress. Numerous other plays followed.

Her filmography has a total of about thirty films in mostly secondary roles, as the sidekick of male comedians, with whom she already worked in the theater.

Isa Barzizza died on May 28, 2023 at the age of 93 at her home in Palau , a Sardinian town where she had lived for over forty years and of which she was an honorary citizen. Her funeral was celebrated in the afternoon of May 29 in the church of the Redeemer in Palau.

In 1995 she participated in the Spoleto Festival with Arthur Miller 's L'ultimo Yankee and in 1999 she interpreted a version of the theatrical adaptation of the novel Sorelle Materassi by Aldo Palazzeschi , alongside Lauretta Masiero .

In 2010 she was on the jury of the international film festival Visionaria in Siena .

In 2012 in the film "Viva l'Italia" she played the role of Marisa, an elderly woman hospitalized.

In the nineties Barzizza also resumed working in the cinema and on television: she hosted the gravure "Mai dire mai" for Rai 3 in 1989 with Fabio Fazio and Giampiero Mughini, and participated in the two series of the Rai 1 fiction ( Non lasciamoci più) "Let's not leave ourselves anymore" (1999 - 2001).

Her second godfather -after Erminio Macario- was Totò , from whom she learned all the secrets of the trade: from the direct relationship with the public to the comedic tempos, from mimicry to the use of space on the stage. In the theater field she performed with Totò two shows: Once upon a time in the world (1948) and Bada che ti mangio (1949). In the latter comedy the gag of the sleeping car was born, also re-proposed in the 1952 film Totò in color. Given the success of the sketch and the overwhelming comedy of Totò, after a few months of reruns from the seven minutes of the first it came to last a good 45 minutes . The Neapolitan comedian was always able to add something to meet the enthusiasm of the public.