Italian actress Laura Betti, who worked with many of Italy's best-known directors in the post-war period, died today, friends said.
Betti (70) was a close friend of the late director Pier Paolo Pasolini, who chose her for several of his films, notably "Canterbury Tales", in which she played the Wife of Bath.
She also had roles in Federico Fellini's 1961 classic "La Dolce Vita" and two of Bernardo Bertolucci's most famous films, "1900" and "Last Tango in Paris".
One of Betti's last appearances on the screen was in the 2001 film by French director Catherine Breillat "A ma Soeur".
In 2001 she made a documentary about Pasolini, a homosexual who was killed in mysterious circumstances on a beach near Rome in 1975.
Betti, whose real surname was Trombetti, was born in the northern Italian city of Bologna and started her career in show business as a jazz singer.