Nicolina!

I was recently watching La Dolce Vita and up pops Nico, playing a character named Nico.  The young model had been standing around the set and Fellini saw her and put her in the movie.  She's a real face of 60s, and today's her birthday.



What she's best known for today, beyond her beauty, is her work with the Velvet Underground, particularly on their first album, appropriately titled The Velvet Underground & Nico.  The band didn't like Andy Warhol forcing the chanteuse on them, but they went along.  Her deep Teutonic voice and glamorous looks definitely added something.  And for whatever reason, I think their first album is their best.

Nico continued recording and acting, though she never hit the same heights. (Some heights--an album no one bought.) Alas, she didn't make it to 50.  Just a few months before that landmark, she suffered a minor heart attack and hit her head when she fell off her bicycle.  She later died of a cerebral hemorrhage.