Reportedly, Pier and James Dean were very much in love and wanted to marry, but her mother blocked the union because Dean wasn't Catholic, and helped arrange Pier's marriage to Vic Damone. Before she committed suicide, Pier wrote that Dean was the only man she had ever really loved.

Had one son with Vic Damone, Perry, who works as a radio DJ for 99.9 FM in Phoenix, Arizona.

Sister-in-law of Jean-Pierre Aumont.

When shooting a central scene with Michael Craig in The Angry Silence (1960), she was so immersed into her character that she left the script and started to shout in Italian. The scene was so impressive that it remained in the film.

In different situations but almost simultaneously, Léonide Moguy and Vittorio De Sica` chose her for her first role.

Kirk Douglas, in his autobiography "The Ragman`s Son", states that he was engaged to Pier in the early 1950s.

Had one son with Vic Damone, Perry, who works as a radio DJ and owns an entertainers representation in Phoenix, Arizona.

Dated James Dean while he was filming East of Eden (1955).

Screen, stage, and television actress.

Twin sister of actress Marisa Pavan.

Three years before she died, the National Inquirer magazine published an interview in which Pier would have said that Dean was the only man she had ever really loved.

Reportedly, Pier and James Dean were very much in love and wanted to marry, but her mother was against the union because of Dean`s behavior, and helped arrange Pier`s marriage to Vic Damone.

I loved Jimmy as I have loved no one else in my life, but I could not give him the enormous amount that he needed. Loving Jimmy was something that could empty a person.

Jimmy was not able to love someone else in return . . . it was the troubled boy that wanted to be loved very badly.

[about her relationship with actor James Dean] He wanted me to love him unconditionally

[about Debbie Reynolds] I don`t know what I would have done without Debbie. Debbie was, is and always will be my very dearest and best friend - we are like sisters.

[about her first role as Mirella in Domani è troppo tardi (1950)] When the scenes begin, I change completely. I was not Anna. Like when you drink cold, cold water and feel it run like ice inside. I felt I was another girl, not me.

I have loved one person in my whole life, and that was James Dean.

On September 10 of that year Pier was found dead of a barbiturate overdose in her Beverly Hills home. She was only 39 years old.

She had divorced her second husband (Armando Trovajoli) in 1969 and made her final appearance on the screen in 1971 in the low-budget sci-fi opus Octaman (1971).

After a handful of films between 1966 and 1970, Pier realized her dreams of superstardom were not to be.

After the Italian production of Banco à Bangkok pour OSS 117 (1964) she returned in the hit European-American co-production Battle of the Bulge (1965).

In 1962 Pier played Ildith in Sodom and Gomorrah (1962) and later that year played in a French production entitled Ammutinamento, L` (1961).

Then once again 1961 saw no appearances.

Merry Andrew (1958) and SOS Pacific (1959), she made three more films in 1960.

She played Ynez in Port Afrique (1956) later that year and then another drought ensued. After The Vintage (1957)

The film was well received at the box office and she had hopes that things were going to pick up again.

No film offers came in 1955, but in 1956 Pier landed the plum role of Norma Graziano (wife of fighter Rocky Graziano) in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) opposite Paul Newman.

She married Vic Damone in 1954, a union that lasted only four years and produced one son.

Now she divided her time between Italy and the US making movies.

After the Italian Mam`zelle Nitouche (1954) she caught the eyes of Hollywood moguls, who cast her in Flame and the Flesh (1954) and The Silver Chalice (1954).

The next year things began to pick up, however, with Hollywood beckoning at her door.

However, she again hit a drought with only one film in 1952 and two in 1953.

Later that year she won the title role in Teresa (1951).

Between 1949 and 1951 she appeared in stage productions and found work in menial jobs. When she did return it was in the film The Light Touch (1952) as Anna Vasarri.

Again it was a very small role, and she was not seen on the screen again until 1951.

The following year she played in another Italian production, Domani è troppo tardi (1950).

The film was largely forgettable but it was a start.

Pier was 16 at the time and it was to be the first of many roles for this beautiful woman.

Her first role was an uncredited part in 1948`s The Million Dollar Nickel (1952), an Italian production.

Anna adopted her surname and split it in half, and it was as Pier Angeli that she would find fame.

Anna and her twin sister, Marisa Pavan, both had their eyes on become film stars, since that was one of the big Italian pastimes.

Anna Maria Pierangeli was born June 19, 1932, in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy