Biography for
Vanna Bonta More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

3 April 1958, Florence, Italy

Nickname

Angel Eyes
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Height

5' 5½" (1.66 m)

Mini Biography

Vanna Bonta grew up in Bangkok, Thailand, Florence, Italy and the USA. She was born in the South and speaks fluent Italian, some French, and some Thai. She began her schooling in Bangkok where she attended a British missionary school.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous

Trivia

Vanna Bonta modeled for "Woman" in the "Creation" statue by Fredrick Hart and David Hytla on the west portal of the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, which former-President George Bush has described as combining "the permanence of stone and God.".

Via Luigi Ugolini in Maremma, Italy is named after her grandfather, an Italian poet and author.

Her family home was made a national monument to her grandfather in Tuscany. (1995)

Was given the medieval Tuscan name Vanna by her grandfather, Luigi Ugolini, after the girl in Dante's Vita Nuova.

Sat for legendary Florentine artist Pietro Annigoni, who gave her the portrait inscribed with a promise to sketch her every time she was in Florence.

Pietro Annigoni was the best man at her parents' wedding. The official portraitist to Queen Elizabeth II and John F. Kennedy was an artistic friend and longtime family friend of her fine artist mother.

Learned to swim as a child by leaping off an olympic height diving board because she didn't want to make the line behind her climb back down the ladder.

Spoke her first words at four months.

Was baptized on the exact spot as the 14th century poet Dante Alighieri in Florence, Italy.

Is married to a rocket scientist.

Wrote her first novel at age 11.

Has flown in zero gravity.

Favorite music: Matchbox 20, Moby, Lounge (18th Street), Moody Blues, Train, Smashmouth, Enya, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Enigma, Hotel Cotes, Space Tribe.

Her story "Somewhen" was purchased for the first season development of Star Trek: TNG.

Was named after the best friend of Beatrice, The Divine Comedy (Dante).

Her name is correctly pronounced Vah'-na.

Favorite flower fragrance is Gardenia.

An entry in the Northrop Grumman space competition 2007 Lunar Lander X-Prize was inspired by and named after the fictional spacecraft "Lauryad" in one of her novels.

Has a gold-cream dog (Chow Chow breed) named Sky and formerly had a blue Chow Chow named Seraph.

Admitted being fashion-challenged and wears paper clips as hair barrettes.

As a Hollywood newbie danced in MTV videos and did ghostwriting.

Plays piano and did her own piano playing and in the audio book version of her novel Flight.

Her grandfather Luigi Ugolini was also her godfather at a ceremony registered in Florence, Italy's medieval Baptistery.

The gallery of paintings in the music video "Home Is You" are all by her mother, Florentine turned US citizen painter Marialuisa Bonta.

A signed first edition of her controversial novel Flight sold for $580 in 2008.

Was cast in dental plaster for special effects needed in her role as Zed's Wife in The Beastmaster (1982).

Coined the literary genre "quantum fiction." (Publishers Weekly).

Had her dog's DNA mapped.

Invented the 2Suit, a garment for intimacy in microgravity environments.

Started as an artist's model at age 10.

Was considered for the role of Sheena (1984).

Collects writing instruments, from quill pens through several era typewriters.

Was known to send her mother flowers on her own birthday with thanks for having given her birth.

Personal Quotes

I didn't have a Barbie doll, so I played with eternity.

"I grew up eating lasagna and grits with soy sauce." - on her Italian, Kentucky parents and growing up in the Orient.

Life is a canvas of many strokes where shades from different palettes meet into a picture so concrete that some forget it is their own so become framed themselves.

It's weird how people who are the least close to me or who've never even met me purport to be experts on the real me; and then, sadly, there are those who could be in touch with me but prefer to gossip with strangers about me instead.

Greed is the lack of confidence of one's own ability to create.

'Impossible' is not a scientific term.

How enlightened is wearing God like some do Versace?

We can have a World War, I see absolutely no reason why we shouldn't have a World Party.

Atheism is a religion itself complete with fanatics and bigots.

If I were after fame I could've just unbuttoned my shirt.

One of the byproducts of sex is people.

Gossip can be entertaining, occasionally I've heard the most fascinating things about myself I never knew.

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