[1] Miranda was born Ines Isabella Sampietro in Milan,[1] the daughter of a street car conductor.

[2] She worked as a typist while attending the Accademia dei Filodrammatici in Milan and trained as a stage actress.

There, billed as the "Italian Marlene Dietrich", she played femme fatale roles in films such as Hotel Imperial (1939) and Adventure in Diamonds (1940).

[1] She returned to Italy soon after the outbreak of World War II and continued to act on stage and to make films.

Other notable film appearances included Siamo donne (1953), a portmanteau film, in which Miranda shared the screen with Anna Magnani, Alida Valli and Ingrid Bergman; Summertime (1955), starring Katharine Hepburn; Gli Sbandati (1955); The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964); The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968); and Liliana Cavani's The Night Porter (1974).