From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Silvana Mangano (21 April 1930  – 16 December 1989)  was an Italian actress. Raised in poverty during World War II, Mangano trained as a dancer and worked as a model before winning a "Miss Rome" beauty pageant in 1946.  This led to work in films; she achieved a notable success in Bitter Rice (1949) and continued working in films for almost four more decades. The Bosnian singer Silvana Armenulić took her stage name from Mangano. Description above from the Wikipedia article Silvana Mangano, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.