Monica Bellucci

Monica Anna Maria Bellucci was born in Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy, on 30 September 1964. Her father Pasquale Bellucci owned a trucking company, and her mother Brunella Briganti was a housewife and amateur painter. Monica Bellucci is an only child because her parents did not want another one. Bellucci grew up in Selci-Lama, in the comune (municipality) of San Giustino on the banks of the Tiber River. Bellucci received a Catholic education. She was an "intelligent child". According to her father, she was discreet and increasingly interested in fashion, and grew up "surrounded by love". Bellucci was introduced to modelling at age 13 when she posed for a photographer friend-of-the-family in Città di Castello. She was distant from other children her age, regularly made detours to get home after school, and did not spend time with them in the comune's public space. Bellucci's father said she complained that everyone stared at her. Her father helped her gain self-confidence. Bellucci developed a taste for cinema, watching films by Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, Marcel Carné, and Jean-Luc Godard. Bellucci has said her personality largely reflects her upbringing: "Certainly a lot of positivity also depends on the climate in which my parents raised me".