- Lizalotta Valesca was born as Ragnhild Nyholm on October 2, 1902 in Finland, and is best known in her country of birth for being crowned the first ever Miss Finland, either in 1930 or 1931, the date varies depending on the source. With the onset of WWII she relocated to California, where she worked as a model and uncredited TV and film extra, some sources also names her as TV producer. She married and had two children. Her only known speaking film role was in This Island Earth (1955), where she played a Finnish scientist with a curiously American name. Her only line was "Mozartti on oikein kaunista", Finnish for "The music of Mozart is very beautiful".
Valesca relocated to New York in 1955, where she worked odd jobs in the fashion and entertainment industry, and performed on stage. In 1961 she published a book on health and beauty, as well as sexuality and reproduction. The book, called More Than Beauty... was well received, and Valesca became a popular lecturer, appearing on several TV programs, where she discussed beauty, aging, health and sex.
Valesca belonged to the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland, and thus often gave interviews for Finnish media in English, rather than Finnish, in her later years.
- IMDb mini biography by: janwass83
- Spouse?
- According to the published letters of globetrotter and diplomat Virginia Hamill Biddle, whom Valesca befriended on a sea voyage from New York to Spain in 1956, Valesca claimed that she was once proposed to by the Maharajah of Jodhpur.
- Although born and raised in Finland, Valesca's first language was Swedish, and she never mastered spoken Finnish very well. This is evident in her only (known) speaking role in This Island Earth, when she utters a line in broken Finnish. When she visited Finland in the sixties to give interviews on TV and radio about her book More Than Beauty..., she preferred to give her answers in English, rather than in Finnish.
- In 1963, Valesca sued the eccentric "Baron" Andrew Von Salza over 13,500 dollars on an old loan, plus 12,000 dollars in interest. She had given him a loan for starting a "youth clinic", which turned out to be a bizarre spa where women were treated for reproduction issues and age-related problems with fertilized egg yolks. Two women sued Von Salza for swindling them out of 15,500 dollars for the bogus treatment, and after hearing about the law-suit, Valesca sued Von Salza over her loan. When Von Salza's egg yolk spa folded, he became a ghost hunter.
- The most important thing [for staying youthful] is to breathe right, and 90 percent of all people do it wrong.
- You're body is the only possession that no-one can take from you.
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