Goodbye to Anna Kanakis, actress and writer, former very young Miss Italy. She died at 61 years old and the funeral will be held in Rome on November 23rd in the church of San Salvatore in Lauro. Born in Messinadaughter of a Greek father and a Sicilian mother, she was just 15 years old when she was elected Miss Italy in Sant’Eufemia d’Aspromonte: she was the first queen so young, after a change in the rules. In 1981 she participated in Miss Universe. Brunette, elegant, Mediterranean, with splendid golden eyes, Kanakis began her career as a model then on the advice of Giuseppe Tornatore she began working as an actress. She was in over 30 films and TV dramas in the 80s. There were many brilliant comedies from the beginning, directed by Castellano and Pipolo and by Sergio Martino in Attila flagello di Dio (1982), Eye, evil eye, parsley and fennel (1983), Acapulco, first beach… on the left (1983) but with Luigi Magni made her film debut in 1989 playing the exuberant role of “banditess” in O Re, with Giancarlo Giannini and Ornella Muti, followed in the same year by Molière’s L’Avaro, directed by Tonino Cervi and starring Alberto Sordi. Since the end of the 80s Kanakis has been the protagonist on TV from Michelangelo directed by Jerry London to the series Vento di Ponente (2002), L’Inchiesta (2006) directed by Giulio Base and finally La Terza Verità (2007) directed by Stefano Reali . After a stint in the national politics-responsible for Culture and Entertainment of the Democratic Union for the Republic (UDR), the party founded by Francesco Cossiga-her second life as a writer. In 2010 she made her debut with the novel “You’re like this” mine when you sleep. The last scandalous love of George Sand’ (Marsilio Editori). In 2011 the second novel Goebbels’ Lover (Marsilio Editori), on the story of Lída Baarová, a Czechoslovakian actress who was the lover of the Nazi hierarch in 1938. The latest work is from 2022: Don’t judge me (Baldini and Castoldi), yet another historical novel, this time about Baron Jacques d’Adelsward Fersen. After a first marriage at a very young age with the musician Claudio Simonetti, from whom she divorced a few years later, the second in 2004 with the Venetian Marco Merati Foscarini, descendant of Marco Foscarini, one of the last doges of Venice.
«Cultivated, beautiful, elegant, refined, original, chic, divine. What a loss.” One of the first to comment on Anna Kanakis’ disappearance on X is the actor and director Giulio Base. On social media we can then read the comments of other colleagues and friends including Clemente Minum and Francesco Canino. The funeral will be held on Thursday 23 November, at 3pm, in the church of San Salvatore in Lauro in Rome.