Franca Bettoia, the Italian actress who starred alongside Vincent Price in the 1964 cult sci-fi film The Last Man on Earthdied in Rome, her family told the Italian news agency Adnkronos. She was 88.
Bettoia was married to Italian actor Ugo Tognazzi, who starred in the 1978 film The Cage of Crowds as played by Robin Williams in Mike Nichols' 1996 adaptation The bird cage — from 1972 until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1990 at the age of 68.
In The Last Man on EarthDirected by Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow, Bettoia plays Ruth, a woman who, with the help of Dr. Robert Morgan (played by Price), tries to defend herself from the effects of a plague that has transformed humans into vampiric creatures.
Shot in Rome, produced by Robert L. Lippert and distributed by American International Pictures, the film is based on the 1954 novel by Richard Matheson I am legendThe author then co-wrote the screenplay credited to Logan Swanson. (Will Smith starred in the 2007 adaptation directed by Francis Lawrence.)
Franca Bettoia with Vincent Price in the film “The Last Man on Earth” in 1964.
Courtesy of the Everett Collection
Born in Rome on May 14, 1936, Bettoia made her film debut in 1955 and obtained the breakthrough role as “the other woman” in Pietro Germi's film Straw Man (1958), premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
He also starred with Alan Ladd in Duel of Champions (1961), co-directed by Terence Young; in Day by day, desperately (1961), directed by Alfredo Giannetti; In Will our heroes be able to find their friend who mysteriously disappeared in Africa? (1968); and in Don't touch the white woman (1974).
His last film was Shaved heads (1993), in which she played the mother of her real son, Gianmarco Tognazzi. Among the survivors is also her daughter, Maria Sole Tognazzi, a director.