Giorgia O'Brien, born Giorgia Montana (Palermo, May 11, 1928 - Palermo, August 17, 2004), was an Italian singer and actress.
First transgender diva of the 1950s and 1960s, gifted with a vocal range that allowed her to perform as both soprano and baritone.
Born in Palermo and attributed to the male gender at birth, from an early age she showed a predisposition for singing, so much so that at the age of eight she performed in the amateur choirs of the city, dreaming one day of becoming a melodrama diva. After several visits to an endocrinologist, his hermaphroditism emerged, thanks to which he possessed a male and a female vocal cord, which allowed him to use baritone and soprano tones with extreme ease with a voice that could reach high ranges. Although skeptical, her parents allowed him to take singing lessons to refine and better manage his voice. In 1947 he impressed the commission of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia with his interpretation of the aria Un bel dì we will see from Madama Butterfly, but he found it very difficult to start his career due to the respectability and moralism prevailing in that period. He moved first to Germany and then to France, where he worked in numerous shows as an en travesti fantasist for various theater companies, alongside other established artists such as Coccinelle. Her shows were characterized by sequined and sequined dresses that recalled those of Wanda Osiris, and by a dance troupe that included a young Raffaella Carrà. Upon her return to Italy she became a vaudeville diva, performing at the Ambra Jovinelli Theater in Rome with a repertoire ranging from songs to Callas 's arias, receiving the applause of numerous personalities including Anna Magnani and Luchino Visconti. But her too much success turned against her, so much so that in 1964 she was ousted from the vaudeville circles. In 1970 he completed his path of sexual transition, going to Casablanca to undergo the operation. She returned to Italy assuming the name of Giorgia and taking the stage name O'Brien as a tribute to Margaret O'Brien, the actress who played Beth in the film Little Women (1949). She worked for three years at the Teatro Piccolo in Milan, and she worked with personalities of the caliber of Patrice Chéreau, Sylvano Bussotti, Lucia Poli, Ugo Gregoretti, Franco Zeffirelli and Giuseppe Bertolucci, who entrusted her with a role in the film Lost Property (1979). Vittorio Caprioli was inspired by her for her transposition of The Ride of the Valkyries, where the diva played the double role of Brunhild (soprano) and Wotan (bass). For the cinema she worked for Roberto Benigni in Johnny Stecchino (1991), where she played the minister's wife. From 1996 to 1998, she played various roles in shows at the Teatro lelio in Palermo. In 1999 she performed alongside Sergio Cammariere at the Teatro Flaiano in Rome, where she revived her repertoire Di lei. In 2000 Di lei's friend Gianfranco Mingozzi entrusted her with a part of her in his film Tobia al caffè. Giorgia O'Brien died in 2004 after a short illness, leaving her husband Georges Argand, who died shortly after. In 2008, his friend Gianfranco Mingozzi recounted his life in the documentary Giorgio/Giorgia - Storia di una voce, presented in the "L'altro Cinema - Extra" section during the 2008 Rome International Film Festival and at the 24th edition of the Turin GLBT Film Festival - From Sodom to Hollywood.
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