Elena Fabrizi (born Fabbrizi), known as Sora Lella (Signora Lella) or Lella Fabrizi was an Italian actress.
Last of six brothers, the eldest of whom was the actor Aldo Fabrizi, before devoting himself to cinema he carried out the restaurant business in Rome, where he opened a restaurant in Campo de 'Fiori and then another restaurant managed together with her husband and son, Aldo Trabalza, on the Isola Tiberina and called Sora Lella, today managed by his three grandchildren, Aldo's children.
She became famous in the early eighties thanks to Carlo Verdone, who made her play a role of grandmother, at the same time gruff and good-natured, both in Bianco, rosso e Verdone (1981) and in Acqua e sapone (1983). Verdone, in his autobiography Fatti coatti, says that he decided to include it in the cast of his film after hearing it speak to the microphones of the local radio station Radio Lazio, where every morning he intervened to give advice to the listeners who called to tell their daily problems. Fascinated by his ways and his personality, he decided to meet her by going to the bar where she used to go.
Her interpretations identified her with the stereotype of the Italian grandmother and, in the last years of her life, she was imitated by Antonello Fassari in the satirical program of Rai 3 Avanzi; initially she did not like these imitations where in sketches she was proposed in her role as a frequent guest on television talk shows with finds such as opening the purse and starting to eat the spaghetti that it contained; later the two reconciled during a television broadcast, Ciao Weekend.
