Valentina Cortese (born 1 January 1923, Milan) is an Italian actress.
Cortese starred in Malaya (1949), a Second World War movie about smuggling and guerilla warfare against the Japanese with Spencer Tracy and James Stewart, The House on Telegraph Hill (1951) directed by Robert Wise, and co-starring Richard Basehart and William Lundigan. Starred along side Michael Denison, Dulcie Gray and Tito Gobbi in the 1950 film "The Glass Mountain" directed by Henry Cass.
Cortese, aged 28, married Basehart in 1951, and had one son with him, the actor Jackie Basehart, before they divorced in 1960.
She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1975 for her performance in François Truffaut's Day for Night.
Cortese appeared in Jules Dassin's Thieves' Highway (1949), Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Michelangelo Antonioni's Le Amiche (1955), Gérard Brach's The Boat on the Grass, Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), and in the Franco Zeffirelli projects such as the 1972 film Brother Sun, Sister Moon, his 1977 miniseries, Jesus of Nazareth and the 1993 film Sparrow.