- Born
- Died
- Birth nameVanna Marie Bonta
- Nicknames
- Angel Eyes
- V
- Height5′ 5″ (1.65 m)
- Vanna Bonta is an American writer and actress known for her cameo as the superhero's mother (Zed's queen) in the fantasy classic The Beastmaster (1982), and for her work on Beauty and the Beast (1991), An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991), and The Universe (2007). She 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 Thailand where she attended a British missionary school.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous
- Vanna Bonta is an American writer and actress. She is known for poetic writing and performances that inspire wonder about everyday life. Though she is best known for flying in zero gravity on The Universe (2007), she won a global fan following with an appearance as the super-hero's young mother in The Beastmaster (1982). Her career as a working actor spans over two decades, primarily as a voice actor in popular feature films, notably (Beauty and the Beast (1991), and television.
In her early life, Bonta's cultural experiences branched worldwide from her American-Italian-Dutch ancestry. Her father, a military officer, was raised in a small town in the American south. Her mother, a fine art painter, was born and raised in Florence, Italy. Bonta traveled the world with her family, living in Thailand as a young girl for six years when her father was stationed there as a diplomat. Tuscany was a frequent stop for extended gatherings at the home of her grandfather, Luigi Ugolini.
Vanna attended an international school with children of many nationalities who practiced different religions. The experience fostered an understanding and interest in universal humanity, as well as an environment for learning four languages.
Both sides of her family tree, American of Dutch origin (paternal) and Italian (maternal), trace back to the 1600s.
The arts were central to Vanna Bonta's home life. She credits her mother for reading to her, and for nurturing creativity with piano, dance and art classes. At age six, Bonta started writing poetry and short fiction. Her first job at age eleven was playing piano for a ballet class. She once tweeted that her father inspired her to soldier on about her dreams. She was the first freshman to ever make the senior class play during high-school. She studied Drama, Photography, Journalism, Music in college. Soon after, she left home in Virginia near Washington D.C. for Hollywood. Besides working as a tap dance instructor, performing comedy skits, dance and improvisation in a cabaret, and giving poetry readings, she also danced in MTV videos, she soon won roles in features and television, and worked as a voice talent on major films and television while continuing to write.
Before Hollywood, Bonta modeled for two of the 20th century's greatest artists, Pietro Annigoni (a drawing portrait) and Frederick Hart (a the figure of "Woman" in the master work "Ex Nihilo," Gods creation, on the west portal of the Washington National Cathedral).
Contributions: Within a year of arriving in Hollywood, Vanna Bonta won the role of the hero's young mother in the fantasy classic feature film The Beastmaster (1982). Bonta's story "Somewhen" was picked up by Paramount for the first season development of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987).
Her contributions often involve themes where science and the mystical meet.
Bonta's debut as a novelist with Flight: a quantum fiction novel (1995) won enthusiastic reviews and recognition from the American Library Association that called it "auspicious and genre-bending," and Publishers Weekly, which reviewed "Whatever 'quantum fiction' is we need more of it."
She performed numerous roles as a voice talent in feature films and television in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, with contributions to animation classics such as Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991), and science fiction movies and television such as Demolition Man (1993), The Twilight Zone (2002), and Children of Dune (2003).
A multifaceted talent and activist for innovation and literacy, she is also a proponent of space exploration and colonization. In 2009, she was invited by The Universe (2007) television series to test her invention, the 2Suit, a stabilizing flight garment, in microgravity. The History Channel documentary broke ground, opening what had previously been considered taboo to discuss, on the topic of human intimacy in space travel, exploration and the colonization of other worlds. It marked her second zero gravity flight.
One of her haiku is on a NASA spaceship to Mars. She was the recipient of the 2012 Brogi literary award for her essay "The Cosmos as a Poem." Her poetry has been read on NPR and is quoted on the popular television series Wilfred (2011).- IMDb Mini Biography By: Ethan Mauricek
- SpousesAllen Newcomb(October 6, 2001 - July 8, 2014) (her death)Mark Francis Shinnick(1988 - 1994) (divorced)
- ParentsJames Cecil Bonta
- Articulate, pleasant voice
- Innocent strength
- Classic looks
- Soulful
- 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.".
- Coined the literary genre "quantum fiction." (Publishers Weekly).
- Invented the 2Suit, a garment for intimacy in microgravity environments and was filmed testing it in zero gravity on The Universe (2007).
- Said she is allergic to red carpets.
- Via Luigi Ugolini in Maremma, Italy is named after her grandfather, an Italian poet and author.
- 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.
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