Born Nadia Kujnir-Herescu in Bucharest, Romania, on November 23, 1923,
to a Russian father and a Bessarabian mother, the future actress Nadia
Gray was raised there. She met first husband Constantin Cantacuzino
(1905-1958), a Romanian aviator and noted WWII fighter ace, while she
was a passenger on one of his commercial air flights. The couple fled
the country during the Communist takeover of Romania in the late 1940s
and emigrated to Paris. There Nadia enjoyed a vast international career
as a Cosmopolitan lead and second lead on stage and in films. The
couple eventually settled in Spain.
She made her film debut in a leading role as a young waitress who
yearns to be a star in the French-Austrian co-production of L'inconnu d'un soir (1949) and
went on to essay a number of more mature, sophisticated, glamorous
patricians in European films, often a continental jet setter or
bourgeoisie type. Earlier roles that led to European stardom included
her countess in Monseigneur (1949), the woman in love with a thief in Der Meisterdieb von Paris (1949), and
the role of Cristina Versini in the Italian technicolor biopic of the
composer Puccini - Liebling der Frauen, Meister der Melodien (1953). Her roster of continental male co-stars went on to
include such legendary stalwarts as Marcello Mastroianni, 'Vittorio de Sica', Rossano Brazzi, Errol Flynn,
Maurice Ronet and Gabriele Ferzetti. Among her scattered appearances in
English-speaking productions were a mixture of adventures, dramas,
comedies and horrors including Wölfe in der Nacht (1951) with John McCallum and Jack Warner,
Nacht ohne Sterne (1951) opposite David Farrar, Der Luxus Käpt'n (1959) starring John Gregson and Donald Sinden, Mr. Topaze (1961)
starring Peter Sellers, Die Ausgekochten (1963) co-starring Kerwin Mathews, Der Mann am Draht (1967) starring Frank Sinatra
and a supporting role in the classic Albert Finney/Audrey Hepburn romance Zwei auf gleichem Weg (1967).
Nadia is most famous, however, for her cameo role toward the end of
Federico Fellini's masterpiece Das süße Leben (1960) as a bored and wealthy socialite who
celebrates her divorce by performing a memorable mink-coated striptease
during a jaded party sequence in her home.
Following the death of her first husband in Spain in 1958 (he was only
52), Nadia continued to film and settled permanently in America in the
late 60s after meeting and marrying second husband Herbert Silverman, a
New York lawyer. She retired from films completely in 1976 and began
headlining as a singing cabaret star. The trend-setting
Russian-Romanian beauty died of a stroke in Manhattan on June 13, 1994
at age 70 and was survived by her second husband and two
stepchildren.
