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Famous people with Sardinian Ancestry (but not born in Sardinia)
Topic Started: Dec 22 2012, 07:53 PM (15,241 Views)
yoshimitsu
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Alessandro Nivola

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Alessandro Antine Nivola (born June 28, 1972) is an American actor, who has appeared in feature films such as Coco Before Chanel, Best Laid Plans, Jurassic Park III, Face/Off, and the first two films of the Goal! trilogy.

Early life

Nivola was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother, Virginia (née Davis), is an artist, and his father, Pietro Salvatore Nivola, is a professor of political science who wrote the book Laws of the Landscape: How Policies Shape Cities in Europe and America. Nivola's paternal grandfather was the italian sculptor Costantino Nivola, and his paternal grandmother, Ruth Guggenheim, was a Jewish refugee from Germany. Nivola has described his mother as "a WASP, from the South",and has stated that she is a descendant of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. He has a brother, Adrian, and attended Phillips Exeter Academy.

Carrer

Nivola began his acting career while still an undergraduate at Yale, landing the leading role in a Seattle production of Athol Fugard's Master Harold...and the Boys. After college, Nivola debuted on Broadway in 1995 as the young lover of Helen Mirren in A Month in the Country. The next year he appeared in the 1996 NBC miniseries Danielle Steel's The Ring and landed his first film role as Joanna Going's preppy husband in Inventing the Abbotts before being cast as Nicolas Cage's paranoid sociopath brother in John Woo's Face/Off (both in 1997).

Nivola adopted an English accent to play a mystery man from former girlfriend Rachel Weisz's past in I Want You (1998), directed by Michael Winterbottom. He then appeared in the thriller Best Laid Plans and again as an Englishman in Patricia Rozema's screen version of the Jane Austen novel, Mansfield Park, both in 1999. He played a rock singer involved with his record producer, played by Frances McDormand, in the film Laurel Canyon. Nivola was one of the faces for the GAP's 2002 Ads campaign "For Every Generation".

Nivola trained hard for the filming of the Goal! trilogy, and has picked up a lot of skill and pace and was commended for his sudden burst of talent by the directors of Goal! 2. In the film Coco avant Chanel, Nivola again played an Englishman and learned to speak French for the role.

In 2010, Nivola appeared in the Off-Broadway play A Lie of the Mind, directed by Ethan Hawke at the Theatre Row in New York City.


Personal Life

Nivola married British actress Emily Mortimer in the Chilterns, Buckinghamshire in January 2003; the couple have a son, Samuel John, born in Westminster, London, on September 23, 2003. They also have a daughter, May Rose, born on January 15, 2010. They live in Brooklyn, New York.
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Pinkulilly
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Lanfranco "Frankie" Dettori

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Lanfranco "Frankie" Dettori, MBE (born 15 December 1970) is a horse racing jockey and celebrity. Dettori has been Champion Jockey on three occasions and has ridden the winners of more than 500 Group races. He has had many successes in his role of stable jockey to Godolphin Racing. Dettori's most celebrated achievement was his riding of all seven winners on Champion's Day at Ascot in 1996. He is the son of the jockey Gianfranco Dettori, who was a prolific winner in Italy. He has been described by Lester Piggott as the best jockey currently riding.
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caesium
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Enrico Letta

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Enrico Letta (pronounced [enˌriːko ˈlɛtta]; born 20 August 1966) is a centre-left Italian politician who has been the Prime Minister of Italy since 2013, leading a grand coalition, comprising the centre-left Democratic Party (of which he is Deputy Secretary), the right-wing People of Freedom, and the centrist Civic Choice. He is also a member of the Chamber of Deputies.[1] He was previously Minister of European Affairs from 1998 to 1999 and Minister of Industry from 1999 to 2001, and served as Secretary to the Council of Ministers from 2006 to 2008. A party loyalist, he is also a strong supporter of the European Union. He maintains a close working relationship with his uncle, the centre-right politician Gianni Letta, a trusted advisor of Silvio Berlusconi, of who he was Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council of Minister during Berlusconi's governments.

Early life and education

Enrico Letta was born in Pisa, Tuscany, to Giorgio Letta, an Abruzzo-born professor of mathematics who teaches probability theory at the University of Pisa (he is a member of the Accademia dei Lincei and of the Accademia nazionale delle scienze) and of Anna Bianchi, a Sardinian born in Sassari and raised in Porto Torres. Born into a numerous family, uncles on his father's side include the centre-right politician Gianni Letta—a close advisor of Silvio Berlusconi—and the archeologist Cesare Letta, while one of his paternal aunts, Maria Teresa Letta, is vice president of the Italian Red Cross; a maternal great-uncle is the poet and playwright Gian Paolo Bazzoni.

After spending part of his childhood in Strasbourg he completed his schooling in Italy at the Liceo Classico Galileo Galilei in Pisa.He has a degree in political science, which he received from the University of Pisa and subsequently obtained a Doctorate (equivalent to a Ph.D.) at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies of Pisa (a Graduate School with University status).

Political career

As a young man he started his political career in the Christian Democracy party (Democrazia Cristiana, DC), the dominant Roman Catholic formation that housed diverse right- and left-leaning political factions within a single catch-all party. From 1991 to 1995 Letta was president of the Youth of the European People's Party,[6] (the official youth wing of the European People's Party—the political party at European level founded by national Christian Democrat formations, including the Italian DC); he used his presidency to help strengthen long-term connections among a variety of centrist parties in Europe, and has since remained a convinced supporter of the European Union.[9][10]

During the Ciampi government (1993–1994) he worked as chief-of-staff for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Beniamino Andreatta; this left-leaning Christian Democrat economist with whom Letta had already been collaborating in a think tank (Agenzia di Ricerche e Legislazione, AREL) played a highly influential role in his political career.[6][9]

Following the collapse of the DC in 1994, Letta joined its immediate successor, the much smaller Italian People's Party; after serving as secretary general of the Treasury's Euro Committee (1996–1997), he became deputy secretary of the party in 1997–1998, at a time when it was already allied with the centre-left.[11] In 1998, he was appointed Minister of European Affairs in Massimo D'Alema's Cabinet at the age of 32, becoming the youngest cabinet minister in post-war Italy.[8] In 1999 he became Minister of Industry. In the general election of 2001 he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in La Margherita (The Daisy), a newly formed centre-left/centrist formation to which the Italian People's Party had adhered.[11][12]

In 2004 he left the Italian Parliament to be elected as a member of the European Parliament, where he sat in the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and was a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.[13] In 2006 he returned to the Chamber of Deputies and was made Secretary to the Council of Ministers in the Prodi II Cabinet, thereby succeeding his uncle Gianni Letta who had held the same post in the outgoing Berlusconi Cabinet, before reconsigning the post to his uncle a year later on the formation of the latest Berlusconi government.[9][10]

Having been a founding member of the Democratic Party (PD) in 2007, Letta stood in the first leadership election (an open primary) and came third with 11% of the vote.[14] During the next leadership election of 2009, he supported the eventual winner, Pier Luigi Bersani, and went on to be elected (on 7 November) Deputy Secretary by the party's national convention.[15]

Prime Minister of Italy

On 24 April 2013, Letta was invited to form a government by President Giorgio Napolitano, after the resignation of Pier Luigi Bersani following weeks of political deadlock after the 2013 general election.[16] On 27 April Letta formally accepted the task of leading a grand coalition, with support from the centre-left Democratic Party (of which he remains Deputy Secretary), the right-wing People of Freedom, and the centrist Civic Choice, and subsequently listed the members of his Cabinet. The government he formed became the first in the history of the Republic to include representatives of all the major candidate-coalitions that had competed the election. His close relationship with his uncle Gianni Letta, one of Silvio Berlusconi's most trusted advisors, was perceived as a way of overcoming the bitter hostility between the two opposing camps.[4][17] Letta appointed Angelino Alfano, a People of Freedom politician, as his Deputy Prime Minister. He was formally sworn-in as Prime Minister on 28 April; during the ceremony, a man fired shots outside Palazzo Chigi and wounded two Carabinieri.

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caesium
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Zoe Williams

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She is famous to be been the leader of student protests in UK in 2010.

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She is the brave young student who stood up to an angry mob at last week's anti-fees demonstration in London.
But while 19-year-old Zoe Williams has been widely praised for urging protesters to stop smashing a police van abandoned in Whitehall, her courage went far beyond a verbal challenge to the vandals, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
Miss Williams, a history of art student and former public schoolgirl, made a direct physical intervention to halt a male protester who was charging towards the back of the police van brandishing a flaming placard.
Without a thought for her own safety, she confronted the would-be arsonist, grabbed the placard from his hands and stamped out the flames.
"It was just instinct," she said in an interview at Somerset House in central London.

"He was going to throw it into the van. That would have been stupid and dangerous. I just knew I had to do something.
"A few of us stamped out the flames and the protester ran off before the photographers could get his picture."
Had the van been set ablaze it could have caused serious injury to demonstrators, and pictures of the fire would have become the dominant images of the day.
The slim and petite Miss Williams, who earned four A grades at A-level and is in her first year at the Courtauld Institute in London, is an unlikely heroine.
But she did not hesitate to take on the violent students because she knew their behaviour would deflect attention from the demonstration's main message – opposition to Government cuts that will mean students paying an extra £9,000 a year in fees.
"I didn't really think about what might happen to me," she said. "I suppose subconsciously I thought that the male protesters would not hit a woman, but then perhaps some of the women could have turned on me.
"I am angry about the cuts too, but smashing things is not going to help.
"When I shouted at them to stop I was just reflecting what I think most people believe – that violence undermines the cause because it alienates the general public.
"It leaves people just talking about student yobs."
She added: "A lot of the protesters were schoolchildren. They were immature, a bit excited and they had no common sense. One girl kept telling everybody that she was 12."
Miss Williams has received messages of support from all over the UK as well as from family and friends in Italy and South Africa.
On Twitter she was described as a "student protest role model". Another posting said she was "a modern-day heroine among the student scum".
Greg Williams, her father, a local government media manager, said that he and Stephanie, Zoe's Italian mother – the couple are separated but live close to each other in New Cross Gate, southeast London – were "very proud" of their daughter.
Mr Williams, 50, was not surprised by the teenager's willingness to take a stand. "Her mother is from Sardinia and Zoe has the Sardinians' determination," he said. Miss Williams speaks fluent Italian and rides around London on a Vespa, an Italian scooter.
"She has always been brave," Mr Williams said. "I have seen her face down bullies before. She is not a shouty person but she is very exercised by injustice. That makes her angry.
"She knows that she has been quite lucky in life but she wants to make the world a better place for those who are not so lucky."
Miss Williams, who lives with her mother, went to Blackheath High School, a single-sex school where fees are £11,600 a year, before switching to £12,500-a-year Colfe's, a co-ed independent school, for her A-levels.
Her public school background, combined with her upbringing in New Cross Gate, has helped her to understand people from a wide variety of backgrounds, her father said.
"When she saw the yobs she would have known what she was dealing with and how to handle them," he said. "She is brave but she's not stupid. I am more worried about her driving around London on her Vespa."
Miss Williams is new to political activism, but feels strongly opposed to the education cuts and is on a student union subcommittee set up to campaign against them.
She arrived in Trafalgar Square for the demonstration at around 11.45am on Wednesday with about 15 students and lecturers from the institute, some carrying placards.
The mood was upbeat, the protest was peaceful and students were soon chanting "No ifs, no buts, no education cuts" and "Clegg, Clegg, Clegg, you don't represent me".
But at around 1pm, as the demonstrators moved along Whitehall, their progress was suddenly blocked by police. "We tried to get people to sit down but it was too packed," said Zoe. "It was claustrophobic and people started getting angry and frustrated."
After about 15 minutes the attacks on the police van began. Young men and women daubed graffiti, climbed on to the bonnet and roof, smashed windows and panels, and stole police helmets.
"We were scared that things were getting out of hand," Zoe said. "We had to do something."
Zoe shouted "Stop, stop, it's not going to help our cause," and "You don't need to do this." Her efforts were met with a torrent of abuse. "Some students were egging them on and telling us to shut up," she said.
Other protesters tried to shout down and even physically restrain Zoe and the other peacemakers.
But she carried on pleading, and some people did listen to her and moved away from the van.
It was during a "lull" in the violence that Zoe saw a protester running towards the back of the van with a placard he had set on fire. "I knew it was bad news and I broke away and ran towards him," she said.
"I just grabbed the placard off him and a few of us stamped out the flames. I didn't think it was anything special. It just seemed the right thing to do."
Zoe was also concerned that the violence set a bad example to the many students who were at their first demonstration, including her 15-year-old brother. "The danger is they will think that's what demonstrations are about."
At one point the protesters rocked the van which looked like it was about to topple over. "Somebody could have been killed. We screamed at them to stop and fortunately they did."
Police said the van had been left in Whitehall because officers in the vehicle had moved away for their own safety.
But Zoe believes it was an old van that had been left there deliberately as a "lightning conductor" for the anger that would inevitably erupt when the students were confined – or "kettled" – in Whitehall.
"I think it was a tactic," Zoe said. "Kettling creates a pressure cooker. The police knew the van would be attacked and knew that images of those attacks would be used by the media."
She felt, however, that had the protest been better organised, the leaders could have used the van as a podium for making speeches.
She remains passionately against the cuts. "They are protecting the NHS but don't realise the importance of education in our society," she says. "We need to invest in everybody's future."
On Tuesday the feisty student will be at another demonstration, at South Bank University where David Cameron is expected to speak. If the prime minister does attend, Miss Williams said he would be given a rough ride.
"He has to listen," she said. "I would never condone violence but if the Government ignores students' concerns, they can expect a lot more trouble.
"What incentive do 16-year-olds have to work hard for good grades if they know they will not be able to afford to go to university?"
The Telegraph
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caesium
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Ambra Medda

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Ambra Medda (1981) is a designer born in Rhodes, Greece, from parents from Sardinia and Austria. She is the co-founder and Creative Director of L’ArcoBaleno (www.larcobaleno.com), an online marketplace and community devoted to collectible design in its broadest sense. Her passion is to ignite great design by fostering collaborations between designers, curators, students, luxury brands, and institutions; discovering and nurturing talent; and producing editorial content that educates, delights, amuses, and inspires.

The daughter of a design gallerist whose home functioned as a salon for the international design community. She spent her youth curating exhibitions, attending auctions and attending openings.

In 2005, Medda co-founded Design Miami/, the definitive fair for limited edition design, with annual shows in Basel, Switzerland and Miami, USA. Design Miami/ quickly became the most substantive forum for collectible design, providing powerful, stimulating, and highly selective commercial and cultural programming, with a focus on unusual collaborations and unique commissions. As Director of Design Miami/, Medda put special emphasis on forging strong partnerships with the world’s most respected cultural organizations, educational institutions, brands, and designers including the Vitra Design Museum, the Georges Pompidou Art & Culture Foundation, the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, ECAL (University of Art and Design Lausanne), FENDI, Audi, Marc Newson, Yves Béhar, Tokujin Yoshioka, and Zaha Hadid.

Prior to Design Miami/, Ambra organized shows with the cutting-edge contemporary art collective Stareleene, and co-curated a group exhibition for the Lower East Side Girl’s Club, with works by Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, and Swoon. She earned a joint degree in Chinese Language and Culture and Asian Art from SOAS, the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University, and is fluent in English, Italian, Spanish, French, and Chinese. She lives in New York City with her husband, musician Damian Kulash.
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Pinkulilly
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Nicolas Lilliu

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Nicolas "Nyco" Lilliu (born in Carspach, near Mulhouse, Alsace in 1987) is a French singer of mixed French-Sardinian origin.

He started very early in music and learned playing the guitar at age 11 and was very much effected by Italian music. At 15, the family left Alsace to live in Brittany where his mother originated from. In 2006, at age 19, he left to Paris to pursue an artistic career.

His first studio release was "Comme un frère", a duo recorded with his brother Pierrick Lilliu and appearing in Pierrick's album Besoin d'espace. He was credited as Nicolas Lilliu on the album.

Nyco Lilliu's first solo recordings were with Mercury where he released an Italian album of songs including "Dimmi Perche". The solo album also contained "La Luna", Nyco's own composition.

He was signed to Universal Music and later to Warner Music where he is preparing his main commercial album due in 2013. The single from the upcoming album with Warner was the Italian-language song "Tu ed io più lei".

In 2013, he is taking part in Robin des Bois, a major musical in France, where he plays the role of Friar Tuck.His track "Un monde à changer", an official single of the French musical, released in September 2012, a full year prior to the official launch of the musical has charted on SNEP, the French Singles Chart and in Ultratip French Belgian Charts. The musical Robin des Bois' is a modern adaptation of Robin Hood, where the lead role is played by French singer M. Pokora.
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Babborcu
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Nicolino Locche


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Nicolino Locche (September 2, 1939 – September 7, 2005) was an Argentine boxer from Tunuyán, Mendoza. He was of Italian origin, with his ancestors coming from Sardinia. Locche is often cited as one of the finest defensive boxers of all time.

Locche was known as "El Intocable" ("The Untouchable") due to his defensive mastery, and became Light Welterweight World Champion in Tokyo, Japan on December 12, 1968, after defeating Paul Takeshi Fuji by technical knockout after Fuji refused to start the 10th round out of frustration because of exhaustion and his inability to connect punches on "The Untouchable," according to the Argentine boxing commentators' recount of the bout (Dotora, 2004).

Locche became an idol in Argentina and routinely sold out the Luna Park, Buenos Aires every time he fought at the well known boxing arena. His boxing style made him a legend. He possessed uncanny reflexes that allowed him to stand in front of his opponents with his hands literally at his sides, behind his back or even resting on his knees as he slipped, bobbed and weaved to avoid his opponent’s punches. Unfortunately Locche's outstanding defensive skills were not equally matched by his offensive response, as he was not generally considered to be a powerful puncher.

Numerous Argentine sources also cite the fact that Locche's approach towards submitting himself to traditional boxing training and discipline was sometimes lackadaisical. For example, Locche was a known habitual cigarette smoker throughout most if not all of his boxing career and his adherence to the strict dietary requirements of his trade was often quite flexible.

Locche defended his title six times, against Carlos Hernandez, Joao Henrique, Adolph Pruitt, Antonio Cervantes and Domingo Barrera Corpas, to lose it in Panama to Alfonso Frazier on March 10, 1972. Locche failed to regain the World Champion belt in a rematch with Cervantes (a.k.a., Kid Pambelé) and retired in 1975.

He was champion of Mendoza, Argentina, and South American lightweight and Jr. welterweight. He debuted at the age of 9, and his amateur record was 117-5-0. Locche turned professional at the age of 19 and amassed a record of 117-4-14 (14 KOs). He was inducted to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2003. The Ring has retrospectively certified him as lineal Junior Welterweight champion from 1968 to 1972.

Locche died in Las Heras in 2005.
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marco80
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Gigi Datome

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Luigi "Gigi" Datome (born November 27, 1987) is a professional basketball player who currently plays for the Detroit Pistons of the NBA. At 6 ft 9 in (2.06 m) tall, he plays the small forward position.
The first sardinian to join the NBA. Posted Image

Luigi Datome was born in Montebelluna, Veneto, from parents from Oristano, Sardinia. Hew grew up in Olbia.


Datome was named the Italian League's Best Player Under 22 in 2009, while a member of the Italian League club Virtus Roma.
In the 2012–13 season, Datome was named the MVP of the Lega Basket Serie A, averaging 16.4 points and 5.6 rebounds per game.

On July 16, 2013, Datome signed a two-year, $3.5 million contract with the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association (NBA).


Datome has been a member of the senior men's Italian national basketball team. He played at EuroBasket 2007, EuroBasket 2009, and EuroBasket 2013.


Titles

Italian League Championship: 2004
Italian Supercup: 2004
Awards
Italian League MVP: 2013
Italian League Best Player Under 22: 2009
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Scarletnight
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Jon Cossu

He is an american male model, with sardinian ancestry :love:

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Edited by Scarletnight, Oct 15 2013, 12:27 AM.
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Enigma
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Scarletnight
Oct 15 2013, 12:26 AM
Jon Cossu

He is an american male model, with sardinian ancestry :love:

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There are rumors which say he is gay. :imao:
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