Desdemona Hagen appeared in the role opposite Robeson in Margaret Webster's production at the Shubert Theatre in New York City in 1943. In cinema, Suzanne Cloutier played Desdemona opposite Orson Welles in a version that won the Palme D'Or at the 1952 Cannes Film Festival. In a 1966 film which holds the record for the most Academy Award nominations given to a Shakespeare film, Maggie Smith played the character opposite Laurence Olivier. Smith and co-stars Olivier, Frank Finlay (Iago), and Joyce Redman (Emilia) all received acting nominations. Irène Jacob played the character in a 1995 film opposite Laurence Fishburne. There have
Bianca (Othello) set in a contemporary high school. In the 2006 Hindi film adaptation "Omkara", the character was renamed "Billo Chamanbahar" and played by Bipasha Basu. In this variation, the Bianca character is not given a handkerchief, but a jewelled belt called a kamarbandh. On television, Betsy Blair played the character in a 1955 BBC adaptation with Gordon Heath as Othello and Rosemary Harris as Desdemona. Wendy Morgan played Bianca in 1981 in the critically acclaimed BBC complete Shakespeare series. The character was renamed "Lulu" and played by Rachael Stirling in an award winning modern English telemovie first broadcast on ITV on