Irina Petrescu

Irina Petrescu (1941–2013) was a celebrated Romanian stage and screen actress, also active in radio and television.

She was discovered while still a university student by director Savel Stiopul, whose screen tests eventually reached Liviu Ciulei and led to her film debut in *The Danube Waves* (*Valurile Dunării*, 1960). Although she had initially enrolled in the Faculty of Letters, she went on to graduate from the “I.L. Caragiale” Institute of Theatre and Film Arts in Bucharest in 1963 (class of Ion Șahighian and David Esrig).

Petrescu quickly became one of the most refined and distinctive presences in Romanian cinema of the 1960s, admired for her elegance, intelligence, and emotional precision. She starred in films such as *I Don’t Want to Get Married*, *A Sentimental Story*, *Steps to the Moon*, and *The Stranger*, and gained further acclaim in Lucian Pintilie’s *Sunday at Six* (1966), opposite Dan Nuțu. The two reunited in *The Mornings of a Sensible Boy* (1967). In 1969, she won the Best Actress award at the 6th Moscow International Film Festival for her performance in *The Mischievous Adolescent*.