Drag me to a Drag Queen Party!

Although Marisa Mell was during the 60's  and 70's a major Italian movie star her professional and private life was mostly found in the printed news papers and gossip magazines! Reality TV did not exist and even commercial television  at large was still in its infancy across Italy and the European mainland. So I am always very grateful to see Marisa Mell in television, news or other kind of media like home videos. And that just happened last week when a longtime Marisa Mell fan from Graz send me the present home video. He grew up with Marisa Mell in his youth in Austria, reading about her in women magazines and remembers reading about her affair with the Shah from Iran and her wild nightlife with fellow Austrian actor, friend and drugbuddy Helmut Berger. He always loved Marisa Mell's looks and never got the chance to see her movies untill later in his life because the Austrian television was not very favorable to her, almost never broadcasting her movies, not even after her untimely death or her 20 year rememberance of her death! In this home video we see a compilation of the Austrian drag queens Dame Galaxis and Miss Chantal St. Germain! At the certain moment in the home video it shows Marisa Mell and Helmut Berger at diner and drag queen spectacle at the end of the 80's or early 90's! Another famous guest is Australian Super Mega Star Dame Edna Everage! Enjoy!

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Thank you to the Grazer informant for this wonderful clip with MM.

The Two "Marisa"s by Helmut Berger

On november 1st 2012, the German publishing company Schwarzkopf Verlag situated in Berlin published a very luxurious photobook on the life of the once European cult movie star and present day always doped enfant terrible Helmut Berger called "Helmut Berger - Ein Leben in Bildern". This book has around 500 pictures trying to give an insight into the life of Helmut Berger from early childhood with his family over his first steps into becoming a world movie star followed by his down fall untill the present day with focus mainly on the many women and sometimes men in his life! All the major actresses at the height of his career in the 60's and 70's have a place in this book like Romy Schneider, Ursula Andress, Sophia Loren... and Marisa Mell.

What is strange about this book is the fact that Marisa Mell appears only on two pictures in this massive book with so many pictures. I understand that this book is a labour of love from the editor for the object of his affection Helmut Berger and that on the most part of the photo's Helmut Berger is in a single pose! Nevertheless this does not take away that Marisa Mell and Helmut Berger had a very intense friendship and even relationship with one another during more than three decades untill her untimely death. Both heralding from Vienna, Austria made that bond very special, giving Marisa Mell a more than special place in his life! I am not even mentioning the drug, alcohol and substance abuse that was common practice between them or being at his bed side after his suicide attempt together with Romy Schneider. So it would only been fair to Marisa Mell that more never before seen pictures were published in this book than the meager two pictures! Sigh! But the brain of Helmut Berger is already so far gone by constant drug and alcohol abuse since decades that he probably hardly can remember his life with Marisa Mell and the shit that he gave her during his life time! During the presentation of the first copy of his book by the editor/publisher a picture appears in the book of Helmut Berger with an actress on the cover of  American "Vogue". Very proudly Helmut Berger tells the editor of his book that he was the first man ever gracing the cover of this fashion magazine together with Marisa... Mell. Sadly this was not true because the actress on the cover was "not" Marisa Mell but Marisa Berenson. 

Thanx to André Schneider for informing me about the existence of this book!

"Les femmes de ma vie" by Alain Delon

On November 8th 2010, the French cult actor Alain Delon became 75 years old. A milestone for the ultimate male sex symbol from France for more than 50 years since his debut on the silver screen at the age of 23. Alain Delon occupies a major place in the history of French and world cinema working with directors among others Luchino Visconti, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Melville, Michelangelo Antonioni and Louis Malle. Contrary to other male sex symbols of that time like Rock Hudson, Richard Chamberlain, Helmut Berger, Jean Marais... Alain Delon was primarely straight loving the most beautiful women of his era. To mark his 75th anniversary Alain Delon has written a book about the 200 (!) most influentual women in his life!

About those women he says:"Je ne serais rien sans les femmes, les actrices, les personnages, les héroïnes qu’elles incarnent. Dans ma vie, comme au cinéma, nous nous sommes aimés. Elles m’ont fait pleurer, elles m’ont fait crier!" Of all those women there are 4 women who became very important. First of all there was the Austrian actress Romy Schneider. “Avec Romy, les souvenirs sont doux et chaleureux. Ce que je garde à jamais dans mon cœur, c’est son sourire. Quand elle souriait, tout s’éclairait, se métamorphosait. En 1958, je suis débutant. Elle est déjà Sissi, star européenne. Elle n’a que 20 ans. Moi, j’étais un jeune loup que l’Indochine avait durci. Tout nous séparait. J’ai fait des essais concluants, et elle m’a choisi pour être à ses côtés dans Christine. Et puis, avec la complicité de mon ami Jean-Claude Brialy qui me manque tant, nous sommes devenus amants.” Then there was the French actress Mireille Darc. “Elle occupe une place à part dans cet album. C’est sans doute, parmi toutes les femmes que j’ai aimées, celle qui me connaît le mieux. Nous nous sommes connus en 1968 pendant le tournage de La piscine. J’étais séparé de Nathalie et je traversais une période compliquée avec des soucis extraprofessionnels. Elle a été là, m’a aimé, m’a soutenu, et ça a duré quinze ans. Et je peux dire que ça dure toujours. Elle reste quelque part la femme de ma vie parce que nos liens, notre complicité, sont inoxydables. Nous avons vécu tant de choses ensemble.”

Or other women like French sexy super star Brigitte Bardot or the Egyptian-French cult singer Dalida. "Nous nous sommes connus dans les années 50. Je vivotais, je travaillais la nuit et au petit matin je m’écroulais dans la petite chambre d’hôtel, rue Jean Mermoz, près des Champs-Élysées. Au même étage, dans une autre mansarde, habitait une certaine Yolanda Gigliotti. Elle venait du Proche-Orient avec, comme seul bagage, un titre de Miss Égypte 1954. Nous rêvions de gloire et de lumière. Dix ans plus tard, elle est devenue Dalida et moi Delon. Nous nous sommes retrouvés à Rome. Nous nous sommes aimés loin des regards et des paparazzis, et les rares témoins de notre liaison restèrent discrets pendant des années. Et quand Eddie Barclay et Orlando, le frère de Dalida, nous proposèrent d’enregistrer le fameux duo "Paroles", paroles, notre complicité était intacte. Je n’ai qu’un regret, qu’un remords, ne pas l’avoir eue au téléphone avant qu’elle ne décide d’en finir avec la vie.” And what about Marisa Mell?

In her own autobiograph "Coverlove" Marisa Mell opens her book with a long first chapter devoted to her liaison with Alain Delon which started in 1962 when both actors where on a plane to Belgrad, Yugoslavia she filming the movie "Dr." while he was on his way to film "La Fabuleuse Aventure de Marco Polo", a movie that he did not finish, and was recast with German actor Horst Bucholz, a main rival to Alain Delon in beefcake department at that time. On first sight Marisa Mell noticed the enormous sex appeal of the French actor and his iron will to seduce all the beautiful women around him. So she was also on his list! At first she tries to resist him but after five weeks even she could not and they became lovers. In her autobiography she then describes in detail her love affair with him, how passionate and animalistic he was in bed. But very soon Marisa Mell discovered that Alain Delon was not an one-women man. Very quickly she was replaced by other famous and non-famous beautiful women who adored him. During the next years they met occassionally during movie premières for movies he played in like "The Yellow Rolls-Royce" with Shirley McLaine in London. Marisa Mell even claims that Alain Delon was in her bed before and after he made a press-conference to announce his marriage to his fiancee Nathalie Barthélemy, later better known as Nathalie Delon. I wonder if there is a photo of Marisa Mell in this book among the 200 other women taken from his private photo archive?

UPDATE July 28th 2011: There are no photos of Marisa Mell in the book "Les femmes de ma vie" by Alain Delon.

The Films of Suso Cecchi D’Amico

On July 31st 2010, one of Italy's greatest screenwriters Suso Cecchi D’Amico died at the age of 96! To fans of Marisa Mell, she is best known as the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of the 1965 Mario Moncelli directed movie "Casanova '70" with Marcello Mastroianni as leading man Andrea Rossi-Colombotti and Marisa Mell as Thelma. In honor of this great lady of Italian movie making the Film Society of Lincoln Centre in New York is showing this week from November 26th untill December 1st 2010 several of her majestic movies like among others "Rocco and his brothers" with a superb Alain Delon, "White Nights" with the always reliable Maria Schell and Jean Marais or "Conversation Piece" with Marisa Mell friend Helmut Berger, all movies directed by Lucino Visconti.

Richard Peña, director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, talked to David Savage of Cinema Retro about this talented screenwriter:

Cinema Retro: A tribute organized around a screenwriter is fairly rare. Why did you choose this specific screenwriter for a tribute?

Richard Pena: Perhaps, but Suso was an extraordinarily special screenwriter. Having recently done a lot of work on Italian cinema, I was startled to see how often her name figured in the credits of so many masterworks. She was an extraordinary talent, and her passing is a loss for all who love film.

CR: Do you think her career was overshadowed by her collaboration with such auteurist names in Italian cinema, such as Visconti, Monicelli, et al? It seems as though a woman would have a hard time holding her own against such huge egos?

RP: My sense is that this had as much to do with the contemporary lionization of film directors as it did plain old sexism. From what I've heard about her, she held her own with the boys.

CR: Can you identify a common thread or characteristic style that belongs to Cecchi d’Amico’s dialogue or characterizations?

RP: With over 100 screenplays to her credit, that becomes difficult; moreover, I've seen at best 50% of them. I think she often likes to focus on a character who takes a decisive action and then study the consequences of that action on those around him/her.

CR: Do you consider her an innovator in screenwriting?

RP: I'm not the best person to answer that question. I think she had a good sense of when to let the action play out on its own rhythms--to under-script, as opposed to an overly determined writing style.

CR: Can you trace any effect she had on any one American screenwriter in particular?

RP: A certain group of American filmmakers have tried to capture the spirit or even adapt "Big Deal on Madonna Street. Whit Stillman would be someone who I'm sure really admires Suso's work.

CR: Do you know how much control she exerted over her own screenplays in terms of the liberties the directors were allowed to take, i.e., was she territorial about her dialogue?

RP: I'm frankly not sure about that, but why hire Suso Cecchi D'Amico if you don't want her work?

CR: Aspiring screenwriters will come to this program, hopefully. What are you hoping they take away?

RP: I hope they sense how carefully structured her screenplays were. There's always a good sense of architecture to her screenplays, even when they leave lots of space for the director.

CR: If you had to choose one film in the line-up that is a definite don’t miss, what would your choice be? Why?

RP: I would say Violent Summer, as it's really an amazingly great film and not that well known. A chance for people to discover not only Suso's work, but that of Valerio Zurlini, a wonderful yet little-known filmmaker as well.

Cannes Film Festival-May 8th 1969

On May 8th 1969, almost every star and starlet from the end of the sixties had a rendez-vous on the Côte d' Azur in Cannes for the 22nd Cannes Film Festival. The clip is from the opening night when the guests of honor like Sylva Koscina, Omar Shariff, Romy Schneider, Vanessa Redgrave and... Marisa Mell arrived at the opening diner. Marisa Mell's career was gaining momentum with movies like "Danger: Diabolik" and "Una Sull'Altra" so she was in the centre of attention together with fellow eurocult star Sylva Koscina. In this clip Marisa Mell arrives at the diner and is being photographed by paparazzi. In another part of the clip she is sitting at her diner table with husband of that time Pier Luigi Torri. Marisa Mell probably got her invitation to the festival via her friend Helmut Berger whose lover Luchino Visconti was President of the Jury for the film competition.

The clip has no sound, bad lightning and picture quality.

THE SWITCH

Last month I had an item about the part of Marisa Mell in the Quentin Tarantino film "Jackie Brown". Today's entry handles about the possibility of a prequel to that acclaimed movie as reported on the movie site "JoBlo" (http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=32260). JoBlo reports: "It seems as though a prequel has already been written to Jackie Brown called "The Switch". Now before we get ahead of ourselves, let me say this: Tarantino has given his blessing on the project, but is not involved. We have to get that straight just so the internet isn't crazed with "Tarantino's doing a prequel to Jackie Brown" because that's not the case. With that out of the way, here's the deets. Like I said, the project is titled, The Switch after the name of the book that's being adapted for the screenplay. Dan Schechter penned the script and is working with Michael Siegel (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) as a producer. Author of The Switch, Elmore Leonard will be executive producer to the film. Currently, there is no studio attached. However, the script is done and the search for a director and cast is about to begin. Leonard and The Switch were a huge inspiration to Tarantino. He was quoted on the subject of both in an interview with Telegraph UK back in February: “He was probably the biggest influence on my life: I have been reading Leonard since I was 14 and got caught stealing his novel The Switch from K-Mart. I got in huge trouble. I was grounded all summer long. But I was so pissed off that I didn’t manage to get the book that two days later I went back and stole it proper.” Jackie Brown characters Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson) and Louis Gara (Robert De Niro) originated from The Switch, but the story from the book didn't carry on to the film. Tarantino's film centered on Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) who gets caught with Ordell Robbie's (Jackson) money. Ordell employs Gara (De Niro) amongst many others to help murder Jackie. The Switch will cast younger versions of Robbie and Gara. But who will they choose? Here's a brief synopsis of the book: Ordell Robbie and Louis Gara hit it off in prison, where they were both doing time for grand theft auto. Now that they're out, they're joining forces for one big score. The plan is to kidnap the wife of a wealthy Detroit developer and hold her for ransom. But they didn't figure the lowlife husband wouldn't want his lady back. So it's time for Plan B and the opportunity to make a real killing -- with the unlikely help of a beautiful, ticked-off housewife who's hungry for a large helping of sweet revenge."

I wonder if this prequel has also a clip on a tv from a Marisa Mell movie like Jackie Brown did with a clip from the movie "La Belva col Mitra". Time will tell!

Eurocrime

During the 1970's, Italy was hit by a number of very bloody and very violent crime waves connected to the Mafia, terrorists, gangsters.... So it was not strange that Italian cinema quickly picked up this new social phenomenon and poured out in the end more than 250 Eurocrime movies. This new genre of movies, based in the beginning on American gangster movies, gave work to a lot of movie stars, Italian and foreign, who were already household names in other genres like spaghetti westerns, Italian horror movies, gialli... with names like Franco Nero, Antonio Sabato, John Saxon, Joe Dallesandro, Henry Silva or Fred Williamson. Even Marisa Mell could not escape this trend in movie making. She also appeared in some Eurocrime movies like "Milano Rovente" with Antonio Sabato, "L'ultima volta" with Joe Dallesandro or "La belva col mitra" with Helmut Berger. Mike Malloy has been hard at work on a new documentary called "Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films that Ruled the ‘70s", togehter with the expert participation of genre genius Kier-La Janisse. Mike Malloy has pulled together a roster of the top actors and directors in the Italian crime genre in order to get their perspectives on these tough, brutal, and occasionally dangerous films. A release in late 2009 is anticipated.

"Wir wollen niemals aus einander gehn!"

Heidi Rosemarie Brühl was a very famous German actress and singer. She was born in Gräfelfing near the Bavarian capital Munich on January 30th 1942. At the tender age of 5, she already took ballet courses. Around 1953, Heidi Brühl was discovered by movie director and producer Harald Braun. He gave her a small part in the 1954 film “Der Letzte Sommer” starring Liselotte Pulver. Her big break came one year later when she played the part of Dalli in the extremely popular German “Heimat”-movies situated on a farm and pony riding school called “Immenhof”. Over the next 20 years she would play the part in 4 more movies with the word “Immenhof” in it’s title. But enough is enough she must have thought, so she decided that she needed also an education and started to follow a 5 year course in singing, dancing and acting. During her school years, she also learned to speak fluently French and English, which would come in very handy at a later time in her career. Around 1959, having finished her eduction it was time to start her career anew. Like many child stars at that time growing into young women was not easy and their fathers had a big influence over them on their lives in general and their careers especially. With Heidi Brühl it was not different. Her father got her, after sending a demo to the Dutch record company “Philips”, a record deal.

First the record company linked her to another female singer called Corina Corten as the “Dolly Sisters” but that was not a very good idea and was quickly put on hold. In the same year of 1959 Heidi Brühl started then a solo career with the single”Chico Chico Charlie”. As a singer she became very successfull during most of the sexties untill around 1967. In Germany, she was called the German "Doris Day". In 1960 she entered the German pre-selections of the “European Song Contest” with the song “Wir wollen niemals aus einander gehn!”. She didn’t make to the finals that year but three years later in 1963 she tried again and was selected to represent her country at the song contest. At the end of the evening, Heidi Brühl ranked on place 9 which was a big disappointment for her. The same year at 21 her father, who was also her manager, suddenly died. This event had a profound impact on her life and career. Untill then her father decided which parts in movies to take and which friends to see and meet. But the biggest surpise for her was that after his death he left her with a heap of debts. Heidi Brühl saw no other option than to leave Germany in 1964 and start another career in another land: Italy. Like so many actors and actresses before and after her Italy was at moment in time the promised land for creative people. During her stay in Rom she met a young and very handsome American actor called "Brett Halsey", they fell in love and married a few months later. Brett Halsey already had a career in Hollywood but it was going nowhere so he also relocated to Rome and was now playing in dozens of spaghetti-westerns and adventure movies. Two children were born out of it: Clayton Alexander and Nicole.
After arriving in Rom in 1965 Marisa Mell got to know Heidi Brühl on the party circuit and through mutual friends like Helmut Berger. They soon became very good friends and had a lot of fun during the parties. During her stay in Rome and Italy, Heidi Brühl never made an Italian movie. It was enough to be the wife of the actor Brett Halsey. In 1970, Heidi Brühl was diagnosed with stomach cancer but she survived after surgery and in the same year Brett Halsey took his wife with him back to the USA. In Las Vegas at the Dunes Hotel she did a concert series with Sammy Davis Junior for 1 year. On TV in 1972 she did a episode of the crime series "Colombo" with Peter Falk. In 1976, the romance was over. Brett Halsey stayed in the USA, Heidi Brühl came back to Germany in 1977 to start het own music publishing company. In 1981 and 1982 her singing career took off again and she had again some modest success in the music business. This time her songs were in English and not in German.

In 1976, Heidi Brühl wrote her autobiography called "Eine kühle Blonde, bitte". The book was published by the Austrian publisher "Molden" with there offices situated in Vienna, Austria. In the book she tells her history as a young girl getting started in the entertainment business and all the hardship she had to endure by being famous in Germany. The title of the book, meaning "A cool blond, please" refers to the much used sentence in Germany for ordering a blond beer.

Although Heide Brühl left Italy to live in the USA, and then after the divorce returning back to Germany, she still kept in touch with Marisa Mell. So it was only natural that when the book was being published to send her friend a copy of it with a special dedication for Marisa Mell.

The text in the book reads: "Liebe Marisa! Herzliche Grüsse. Deine Heidi Brühl". (Dear Marisa! Best wishes, your Heidi Brühl)

But that is not all! Heidi Brühl wanted to be sure that the book with dedication got to Marisa Mell in person so she asked their mutual friend Helmut Berger to deliver the book directly to her. Helmut wrote on an index card "Liebe Marisa, letzte Woche besuchte mich Heidi in meiner Münchener Wohnung. Anbei Ihr Buch nebst Widmung. Herzliche Grüsse, Helmut."(Dear Marisa, last week I got a visit from Heidi in my Munich house. Enclosed her book with dedication. Best wishes, Helmut.)

In 1991, Heidi Brühl was again diagnosed with cancer, this time breast cancer. Again she needed surgery but now she did not survive and died on the operating table on June 8th 1991, several months before the death of Marisa Mell on May 16th 1992.

Body Double with Helmut Berger

Marisa Mell and Helmut Berger, both from Austria, knew each other several years, before they became lovers between 1976 and 1978. Before that Helmut Berger had a long term almost marriage like gay relationship with the world famous Italian director Luchino Visconte (1906-1976) which ended with the sudden death of the director. After his death Helmut Berger became desperate not knowing what to do with his professional and personal life. This was also made worst by the fact that Visconte did not made a testament during his life so Helmut Berger did not inherit anything from the Visconte estate and the Visconte family dropped him after the funeral. During this difficult period he was helped by mostly Ursula Andress, Romy Schneider and... Marisa Mell. They were his closest friends. It was during this time of intimacy that they probably became lovers. Helmut Berger had always been very open about his sexuality and his equal preferance for women and... men. The affair was very prominent in the yellow press at that time. In 1977 they both starred in the Italian action movie "La Belva col mitra", famous for the rape scene of Marisa Mell by Helmut Berger. To promote the movie the couple made an even more notorious photo shoot for Italian Playboy as lovers in the same bed room at the Moderno Hotel in Ancona where the sex scenes for the movie were filmed. This photo shoot went around the world and made headline's everywhere. The Belgian movie magazine Cine Revue picked the photos up for its July 7th 1977 cover and issue. It was one of it's biggest selling issues to that date.

(Note: I got a lot of requests for this shoot in the last months from people who wanted to see these notorious pictures. I have no problem in showing full frontal nudity because in Europe people are not prude and accept their bodies and sexuality as a natural fact. But... in regard to this blog I find it, for me, in respect to Marisa Mell, unacceptable to show her in full frontal nudity, even knowing that she was quite comfortable showing her nude body and the photo shoot was originally made in full frontal nudity by both actors with their agreement. So therefor I have covered her most intimate part with an orange butterfly.)

Ciné Revue - Marisa Mell Covers (1966-1977)

Here are some photos of Marisa Mell during her career on the cover of the Belgian film (and later television) magazine "Ciné Revue". The magezine is in French and still being published to this day but due to a lack of real movie stars like in the 60 's and 70's the magazine is now focusing mostly on gossip and tabloid issues from celebrity, television stars and society people. The covers underwent also great changes. In the mid 70's their focus became more and more on topless actresses as one can see from these pictures. In the beginning Marisa Mell was decently dressed in hot pants, towel or shirt, later she was in different kind of nude poses. Please take note that the photos are not always published in the same year that they have been shot. For example the photo on the June 24th 1974 cover depicts Marisa Mell from the movie "Una Sull'Altra" although the photo was shot in 1969.

November 3rd, 1966 Issue

August 8th, 1968 Issue
April 9th, 1970 Issue June 24th, 1974 Issue April 14th, 1977 Issue
July 7th, 1977 Issue

Marisa Mell in "Dynasty" ???

At the beginning of the 80's actresses which started their careers in the precedent decennia had it very difficult to keep up the momentum. A lot of them had to be satisfied with cameo's in movies, badly payed television roles or do softcore/hardcore to earn a living. Some of them disappeared completely from the movie canvas. Not every star or starlet from that time had the chance to marry a wealthy producer like Sophia Loren (with a man who could haven been her father due to the age difference) or Luciana Paluzzi (who had to make a decision between her career or becoming a mother). Marisa Mell was not so lucky but at least she was in good company with fellow actresses like Michèle Mercier, Virna Lisi, Ursula Andress, Elke Sommer, Karen Schubert, Claudine Auger... and Joan Collins. Joan Collins had already a very good career in the years precident to the 80's when at the end of the 70's it went nowhere. She had to accept parts in dubious films like "The Stud" and "The Bitch" based on novels by her sister Jackie Collins. She was desperate for work and money. Joan Collins had worked in the UK and the States and was still some kind of household name. Maybe not anymore for the general audience but for television producers she still was. In hindsight playing in the two before mentioned movies was her golden ticket for a reboost of her career. Aaron Spelling, procuder of television series which made history like Starsky and Hutch, Charlie's Angels and the Love Boot..., was always on the look out for faded stars to play in his productions because it was relatively cheap to hire them but formost it upgraded his often cheap scripts. At the beginning of the '80's the American network ABC was looking to rival her competing network CBS for prime time viewers who were, since three years, addicted to the soap "Dallas". ABC turned to Aaron Spelling to do the job. He and his team created "Dynasty" but during the soaps first year, which would become an über soap with everthing bigger, better and bolder, was in big trouble. Viewers were not tuning in to watch it and Dallas was the number 1 show on the Nielsen ratings. Help was needed and very quickly if the soap was to survive into a second season. A search started to find a solution to help the already sinking soap. Then lighting hit the producers. Why not create a new J.R and make him not male but female so she could rival the main characters on the show in the person of Blake Carrington, patriarch of the family and his second wife Krystle. The hunt was on to find the ideal actress to play the character Alexis Morell Carrington. Dozens of Hollywood actresses, old and new, were tested to play the part, even European ones like Claudia Cardinale or Gina Lollobrigida came on the short list, but always something was lacking untill one of the staff members at Spelling remembered a middle aged actress which played some kind of a pre-Alexis in two cheap sexploitation movies in the UK called "The Stud" and "The Bitch". The rest is history. Joan Collins, desperate for money, was flown over to the States, tested the part and got it. A great deal in her favour probably was the fact that she spoke English with a very up class Britsh accent which sounded very snobby and exotic for American viewers and gave a hint of being very wealty. She was quicky written into the show so she could be part of the cliffhanger in the last episode of season 1 as a mystery witness in a Blake Carrington related trial. At the beginning of the second season it was revealed that the mystery witness was Blake's first wife, Alexis Morell Carrington, played by Joan Collins.

So what has this to do with Marisa Mell? Well, it could be possible that, although I have never read or heard anything about, but that is normal in casting searches to keep the procedures hidden, that Marisa Mell was, one time or another, a candidate to play the character of Alexis in Dynasty. It could have been. She was known in the States due to her international productions like Mahogany with Diana Ross. She was still very beautiful and was looking the part as you can see on the above picture. She had international film and television experience. She was educated at a famous theatre school "Max Reinhardt Seminar" in Vienna. If she got the part, instead of Joan Collins, her life would have been very different. She would have gotten fame and money like she never had in her life. It would have made her life a little easier at the end of it when her terrible disease struck. The down side would be that she had to move to Los Angeles. That could have been a problem because a decade earlier Marisa Mell refused to go to America to start a film career because of the harsh ever demanding contracts in those days. Marisa Mell prefered to stay in Europe with more flexible working conditions and the good life. This is something that she probably felt sorry about later. Due to the success of Dynasty more über soaps became the hit and the search for older stars grew. The best examples are still Gina Lollobrigida, costing the production company a lot of dollars, in "Falcon Crest", former lover and also broke actor Helmut Berger in "Dynasty" or even Rock Hudson, at the end of his life, also in "Dynasty".

Angelo Frontoni: Master of Light on Paper

During the 60’s and 70’s Italian cinema was at it’s pinacle! Cinecita, at the borders of the eternal city Rome, was producing each year dozens of movies for each genre possible. Those movies would later be called “Cinema Bis” because they were often copies of American blockbusters like Exorcist, Jaws, Star Wars, …. When you were on one of these sets at that time, you could often see a little dark haired balding man with a photo camera in his hand running around and taking at regulary intervals pictures of these sets, cast and crew during and between filming. His name was "Angelo Frontoni" (°Rome 1929) and one of the best photographers from that era in Italy and probably the world. During his long career, untill his death by heart attack in his beloved Rome in 2002 at the age of 73, he worked with almost every actress in the Euro-cult scene like Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Gina Lollobrigida, Virna Lisi, Anna Magnani, Catherine Spaak, Scilla Gabel, Silvana Mangano, Monica Vitti, Edwige Fenech, Ornella Mutti, Eleonara Giorgi, Monica Guerritore, Serena Grandi, Fransceca Dellare, Elsa Martinelli, Ursula Andress, Ornella Vanoni, Iva Zanicchi, Monica Belluci, Maria Grazia Cucinotta, Valeria Marini, and of course...Marisa Mell. Life in Rome was great and a beautiful back ground for his pictures. He started out as black and white photographer but during the following years switched to colour. As you can see from his pictures he had always the beauty of the actresses as his main goal. He loved women and he got to know them all very intimitely. At every moment of the day with its special day light he could create a beautiful picture. He was a real master of his trade.

With such stunning photos it was not strange that most of the top magazines dealing in female beauty, ranging from Playboy, High Society to Vogue, Harper's Bazar, came knocking at his door to do photo shoots for them. His pictures were always a sure sell. Living in the liberated 60's and 70's people became aware that being nude and nudity was not something to be ashamed of but a natural thing. So nude photography became, at least in Europe, socially accepted and people enjoyed seeing nude women, and actresses in special, in movies, books, magazines.... like the ground breaking movie "Emmanuelle" with Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel. The above list of actresses he worked with gives you an idea that almost all of them were accepting photo shoots in the nude, not only because it was fashionable, but because it was also done by a master of the trade. Where could you go wrong? You were sure that the pictures were done with a lot of respect for the subject at hand and often history was made in retrospect.

For Marisa Mell nudity was not a problem neither in film nor in photos as shown in this photo from the 1970 movie "The Great Swinddle" with Stephen Boyd. When the offers for nude photo shootings came in among others from Angelo Frontoni, Marisa Mell was not opposed to it. By the way those photo shoots were easy money - very well payed for little work. In later years, Marisa Mell relied on nude photography to earn a living after her career was at an all time low but not in the mid '70's with Angelo Frontoni. There are two photo shoots which made headlines, the one where she wears her hair in Indian style braids with a red back ground and the other is a photo shoot with Helmut Berger together full frontal naked in bed as a publicity stunt for the movie "La belva col mitra" in 1977. The photo shoot with the Idian style braids went around the world and appeared one way or the other in a lot of magazines starting in Italian "Playboy", then to German "High Society" and then all the way down to local yellow press magazines.

Below you can see three covers of the same photo shoot! Although the covers look alike, when you look closer you can see that they are not and that they are each a little different:

At the end of his life Angelo Frontoni had an enormous back catalogue of photos of stars and starlets from years gone by. These photos were often collected in books and magazines, not always to the delight of some stars which liked to forget that they were ever made.

Lady O and Slave of Love (Marisa Mell on Record)

In 1979 the career of Marisa Mell was slowly coming to an end! Her latest succesful movie was "La belva col mitra" in 1977 with lover of that moment Helmut Berger. After this movie the offers were dwindling and she had to accept lesser and lesser movie offers to keep the cash flowing. In most of these movies she played a supporting role. Another way to keep the money coming in and being able to pay for a living was to accept several offers to pose in the nude in second class nude magazine's like "High Society" and other likewise. She hated it to do this but saw no other way to earn a living. Around the same time a german record producer with the name of Ralph Siegel got notice of the bad financial situation of Marisa Mell. Never to let an opportunity go by he offered her a record deal in the hope to cash in on her still well known name in Europe. It was a long shot but worth the risk he tought and maybe she could start a record career. Ralph Siegel was and still is a musician, composer and producer through his record label "Jupiter Records" based in Munich (Germany). The label is a real stable with dozen's of artists under contract. Siegel is best known as the man behind the only German Eurovision Song Contest winning in 1982 by German female singer "Nicole" and her peace song "Ein bisschen Frieden" or "A Little Peace". The song became a huge hit in Europe due to the cold war protest in the Regean era. The song made Ralph Siegel a very wealthy man. Later Ralph Siegel was put into the spotlight in France, Belgium and Luxembourg in face of a contract scandal he made for the two artists "Sophie and Magaly" with their song "Papa Pingouin". It was revealed that Siegel gave only 5000 Euros to each of the sisters, although more than one million records were sold. Ralph Siegel came up with the only 7" single Marisa Mell ever made with the title: "Lady O" as A-side and "Slave of Love" as B-side. The title of the songs are referring to a SM-relationship that Marisa Mell has with her lover for which she would do anything to get his love. The track has the actress begging, in a sexy husky speaking voice due to heavy smoking for many years, to be held down with heavy chains, beaten with sticks, and generally treated like "...your animal in a cage". The story refers to another well known SM-story "Histoire d'O" which was a big cinema hit in that period. The rhythm has an stop-and-go structure and the backing is minimal with just a drumbeat and some burbling synths, plus a chorus. The picture sleeve has Marisa on a motorcycle, wearing a red-black riding jacket. The record was one big farce and was horrible to listen to. It was a bomb and did not sell at all. Afterwards looking back one can only guess that Marisa Mell was very much in dispair to agree to such a monstrocity. Unfortunately she had to do almost anything to earn a living. Fact is that she had high hopes but was very disappointed when the single flopped in the charts and Ralph Siegel dropped her contract. It was the start of the definitive end of her career and the way down would be long and very painful untill the very end of her life!

Through the years the single has become a collector's item for fans of Euro-cult and it's actresses because of it's rarity and oddity. So finding it in good condition is not easy but occassionally the single is on offer on Ebay at a reasonable price.