An actor, a model, a businesswoman and a person who is passionate about wildlife conservation. That’s Isabella Rossellini for you. Daughter of two legendary figures of the silver screen, Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini, Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini, to give her her full name, started life with the inherited advantages of beauty and talent. But the grit and drive that have seen to it that she can stand up and be counted are entirely her own.

Isabella was born on June 18, 1952 in Rome, 30 minutes before her fraternal twin Isotta. Ingrid and Roberto already had a son, also named Roberto. Her parents’ marriage was the stuff that kept the scandal tills ringing in celluloid circles for a long time, as Ingrid had left her first husband Peter Lindstrom and daughter Pia for Roberto, with whom she had fallen passionately in love. But when Isabella was five, Ingrid’s second marriage too fell apart.

Isabella was to comment, much later in life, that for both her parents, work, not raising a family, was top priority. After Roberto and Ingrid divorced, the children lived with neither parent, but stayed at apartments and hotels, looked after by baby-sitters and nannies. Their parents were merely visitors in their lives. Yet, Isabella looks back on these years with absolutely no sense of abandonment. On the other hand, she admits to having something bordering on an Electra Complex, and describes herself as “Dad’s girl”.

While living this odd sort of life without the companionship of parents, Isabella was diagnosed with Scoliosis, or progressive curvature of the spine. The treatment involved surgical intervention, using pieces of her own shin bone to support her vertebrae. It left her scarred for life, on her back and shin, and she was totally bedridden for a year. She was just 13. But Isabella was resilient enough to triumph over such a setback, and soon she was back in the swing of life.

When she was barely 19, Isabella moved to the US, and began work, as a Translator and reporter for RAI television, and in an Italian comedy show. The year 1976 saw her make her movie debut with a small part in A Matter of Time, in which her mother also acted. Her first proper American film, White Nights, came nine years later. Isabella went on to give remarkable performances in several movies, Death Becomes Her, Cousins, Immortal Beloved and Fearless, to name a few. But the most memorable of her roles are possibly those of Dorothy Vallens, the abused lounge singer in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and more recently, as the double-amputee beer baroness in The Saddest Music in the World. She has also appeared in television series like Alias, Legend of Earthsea and Merlin. She was the narrator for a Discovery Channel special production on Italy, a 2-hour presentation.

But her most visible side was probably as the face of Lancome, the cosmetic major for which she was spokes-model for 14 long years, till she was unceremoniously removed on the grounds that she was “too old” at past 40.

Isabella went on to set up her own perfume company, and developed her own brand, Isabella Rossellini’s Manifesto, but rates her foray into business as only partially successful, because although financially sound, she couldn’t enforce her own “woman’s blueprint” for doing business.

Her modelling career began at the comparatively late age of 28, when she was photographed by Vogue, and she went on to feature on the covers of such top magazines as Elle, Marie Claire and Vanity Fair. A woman whose face could convey a whole range of emotions and moods, she was photographed by the likes of Norman Parkinson, Eve Arnold, Peter Lindbergh and Richard Avedon. So much so that in 1998, an exhibition of her photographs, titled Rossellini, Portrait of a Woman, was held at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.

Her personal life took some twists and turns; she married Martin Scorsese in 1979, and the marriage lasted four years. In 1983, she married Jon Weidemann, then a German model, and had a daughter by him, named Elettra. The marriage broke up in 1986 but apart from these two periods, she has lived a life of a single woman, though she has been romantically associated with people like David Lynch, Gary Oldman and Gregory Mosher. Besides her daughter, she also has an adopted son whom she named Roberto after her father. Her children are very important to her, says Isabella.

She has also authored books -- Some of Me and Looking at Me, the latter being a photographic memoir, and In the Name of the Father, the Daughter and the Holy Spirits: Remembering Roberto Rossellini, coupled with her film “My Dad is 100 Years Old”, a tribute to her father. In the film, directed by Guy Maddin, Roberto is characterised by a huge stomach, while Isabella herself plays multiple roles – acting the parts of Chaplin, David Selznick, Alfred Hitchcock and of her own mother, Ingrid.

Isabella’s awards include: Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead (Blue Velvet)
Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance (Crime of the Century) and Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress (Chicago Hope). She is also the George Eastman Award Honoree for her role in film preservation.

The woman who was adjudged one among the 50 most beautiful in the world by the People Magazine two years running, and numbered among the 100 sexiest stars in film history by the Empire Magazine, is also passionate about conservation. She is a significant donor to efforts like the Andean Cat Alliance and the White Oak Plantation Nature Preserve in Florida. Her efforts have been honoured by no less than the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund. She also breeds dogs for the blind. Isabella explains that she has earned way beyond what she needs, and considers it her responsibility to contribute to saving animals.

She is the National Ambassador for the US Fund for UNICEF.

A multifaceted personality, Isabella now has her thinking cap on to work out how best to celebrate her mother’s centennial, coming up in 2015.

Isabella Rossellini holds dual citizenship of both USA and Italy, and lives for the most part in New York.