Biography
Isabella Rossellini was one of the twin daughters born to actress
Ingrid Bergman and director
Roberto Rossellini in 1952. After growing up in Italy, she came to America when she was19 and studied at Finch College and the New School for Social Research. She then returned to Rome, where she worked as a translator and TV journalist (not unlike her New York-based half-sister Pia Lindström). Just for fun, Rossellini made her first movie appearance in 1976, playing a bit in her mother's film
A Matter of Time. She found acting to her liking, appearing in several European TV dramas before her first big-screen starring role in 1979's The Meadow. In the early 1980s, Rossellini put her film activities on the back burner to concentrate on her modelling career on behalf of Lancome Cosmetics. After her first marriage (to Hollywood director
Martin Scorsese) ended in 1983, she began a relationship with ballet star
Mikhail Baryshnikov, with whom she co-starred in
White Nights (1985). She was later involved was filmmaker
David Lynch, who cast her in her breakthrough role as a much-abused small-town nightclub singer in
Blue Velvet (1986). (Her other romantic partners have included her second husband John Wiedeman -- the father of her daughter Elettra -- and actor
Gary Oldman). Rossellini continued seeking out offbeat, challenging film roles into the '90s, including Anna Maria Ermody in the controversial Beethoven biopic
Immortal Beloved and no-nonsense frontierswoman Big Nose Kate in
Wyatt Earp (both 1994). She also starred in
Campbell Scott and
Stanley Tucci's delicious drama
Big Night in 1996. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide