Biography
Stella Maris, pseudonym of Ilvea Benatti, was an Italian actress. She began her career in the 1950s as a character actress in theatre, appearing alongside Walter Chiari at the Teatro Duse in Bergamo and later working with the companies of Febo Conti and Carlo Dapporto.
From the 1980s she appeared in numerous television productions, including Casa Vianello and Ciro, il figlio di Target. Her film roles include Electric Dreams (1984), Truly Madly Deeply (1990) as Maura, Tutti gli uomini del deficiente (1999), Imagining Argentina (2003) and Benvenuti al Nord (2012). She gained later popularity for the viral marketing character Nonna Lea in a 2011 series of videos for the property portal Casa.it.
