Today is Saturday and like every weekend, it’s Verissimo time. With couple interviews, unpublished statements and unexpected confessions, many guests will be in Silvia Toffanin’s living room to tell their stories and share their secrets. Among them is Vera Gemma, who was in the studio with her sister Giuliana. Who is Vera Gemma, her career Vera Gemma was born in Rome on July 4, 1970 (54 years old). The artist, a daughter of art, started visiting film sets at a young age, thanks to her father Giuliano Gemma, a very famous Italian actor. In 1978, she starred with him in her first film, The Great Attack. Vera spent her childhood in Rome and then moved to Los Angeles in 2008, although she has also lived in Paris. His acting career began in 1996 with Dario Argento’s film The Stendhal Syndrome. Then came Cinema Thieves, Alliance cherche doigt, Hardboiled Egg, Stressati and Cartoons, all shot in 1997. Giuliana Gemma: ‘I was with a man 15 years younger than me for 10 years, I don’t understand why people are surprised.’ While he starred in the movie And Together We Will Live Through All Seasons in 1999, we see him in the successful movie Scarlet Diva with Asia Argento in 2000. His last cinema experience was in director Dario Argento’s film The Card Player in 2004. She is the protagonist of the movie Vera, which won the Orizzonti Award for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival in 2022. In December of the same year, he returned to the theater and took part as narrator in Francesco Maria Gallo’s rock opera Inferno – Opera Rock. Farewell to the cinema In his interview with Corriere, Dario Argento explains why he left the cinema despite small roles such as Paolo Virzì and Pupi Avati: ‘I left when I realized that in Italy they would never accept me as the protagonist: I am not beautiful enough to play the beautiful, funny-looking, people I am not someone who makes you laugh; My face evokes extreme things, but there are no protagonists with extreme characters here. So I wrote books, I did a circus, I became a stripper: I gave up being an actress, but I gave up being an artist.’ Stripper background Vera Gemma also had a stripper background. He tells it himself. He did this ‘When my mother died, I inherited it and I spent the money immediately, and my father said he would not give me a penny. I decided to go to Los Angeles, I tried to offer to become a waiter, but nothing happened. At one point, I discovered a strip club called The Body Shop that had very high-end shows. I never undressed, but I studied classical and modern dance. I auditioned and they took me that evening. I immediately won 1,200 euros. ‘Within a day I was back to the standard of living I always had.’ Have you ever felt like a woman objected? ‘On the contrary. I have never felt such a sense of omnipotence. A stripper is a dream to look at, not to touch, and Americans are crazy: They tipped two hundred dollars, you’re charging them just to watch you dance.’ But Vera’s artistic streak doesn’t only express itself in front of the camera. He collaborates with the electric band Distorsonic, publishes a biography and thriller, and returns to the circus as a world-class lion and tiger tamer. ‘I grew up in circuses, my father learned to be a stuntman there,’ he says in an interview. When he died in 2013, I felt the need to find him again in an environment he loved, so I started spending days in the circus. I made a documentary about that world. Being a tamer came naturally: I entered the cages to bring food to the animals, who got used to me and saw me as the pack leader. I traveled to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. ‘I found a way to be an artist in the circus.’ Television In 2019, she participated in various TV shows, among which in 2020 we see her in Pechino Express with her friend Asia Argento and then with Gennaro Lillio. Thanks to the program, the actress gained great popularity on the small screen, and in the same year, she was hired to play the role of a seduction expert in the cast of the game show hosted by Costantino della Gherardesca Resta a casa e vinci. In 2021, she participated as a contestant in the reality show L’Isola dei famosi, broadcast on Canale 5. How Giuliano Gemma died Vera’s father, Giuliano Gemma, died in a car accident in Cerveteri on October 1, 2013. The actor collided head-on with his vehicle while driving. It turned out that the condition of the man who was taken to San Paolo hospital in Civitavecchia was critical. Doctors at Civitavecchia hospital were only able to confirm his death. A man and his son were also injured in the crash. ‘I felt lost. If he were still here I’d tell him I loved him more often – Vera had said – Not that I didn’t tell him, but now that he’s gone and I miss him, I wish I could do it again.’ Her (eventful) personal life In 2001, she married a kung-fu champion named Jamil, whom they met in Paris, but the marriage only lasted a few years. She later became romantically involved with musician Henry Harris, with whom she had a son named Maximus. During her participation in the reality show L’Isola dei Famosi in 2021, Vera Gemma officially announced her relationship with Jeda, a young music producer much younger than the actress. She comments on her relationship with her boyfriend, who is years younger than her, as follows: ‘Everyone is surprised by our age difference. The important thing is that the love is real, it is sincere, then it lasts as long as it lasts. There are no rules in love, I have no problems, whereas others get disturbed and judge very easily.’ In April 2023, news leaked about the end of the relationship between Vera Gemma and the young manager: ‘Gemma is single again – it reads in Chi – The relationship between actress Vera Gemma and her 23-year-old trap music baby boyfriend Jeda is over manager. ‘He was the one who ended the relationship but the two remained on good terms.’ Relationship with men Later there was talk of a relationship with Gué Pequeno. And the relationship with Misha Carry (34 years younger) also ended. ‘Everyone thinks I live a crazy, rock star life, when in reality I don’t drink and spend my evenings at home with my 13-year-old son. “Now I’m single again,” he said in an interview. And Oggi adds: ‘I just realized I was in love with my father. And I want a more mature person next to me; “With young people, I always have to act a little bit like a mother, I find myself giving advice, explaining life,” the actress explained. “If I go out to dinner now, I don’t want this to happen. It is assumed that I am the one who will take out the card at the time of the bill.”