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!

Graz (A): a city with a short memory?

Last week I got a nice letter from a fellow "Marisa Mell"-fan Jochen. Nothing unusual here except that this fan is living in Graz, Austria. As many of you know, who are following this blog for years, Graz was the home and birth town of Marlies Theres Moitzi, before she became the actress Marisa Mell. She lived together with her mother in this town, among other places at the "Trondheimgasse 12", untill she went to Vienna, the capital of Austria, to study at the world famous theatre school "Max Reinhardt Seminar", situated on the grounds of the castle "Schloss Schönbrun". In another entry on this blog (dated October 25th 2008) I wrote about Graz "...becoming in 2003 "Cultural Capital of Europe" for that year and the women of the "WOMENT" organisation decided to honor some women from Graz who had some kind of historical importancy for Graz and her history. In honor of these women, the organisation decided to dedicate 23 plates to these women in a project called "20+03". On march 8th 2003, on International Women's Day, these plates were revealed and during April 2003 they were put on the walls at their distinctive places. Each plate of the 23 plates has a different look and color scheme but they all share the same concept so that they have a common feeling and look about them....The text on the plate for Marisa Mell goes as follows: "Zur Würdigung von Marisa Mell (1939-1992)-Schauspielerin - Schön war sie und sie hatte Talent. Sie genoss ihre Berühmtheit und Männer lagen ihr zu Füssen. Ein Traumleben voller Glamour - die Liebe kam zu kurz. Der Film riss, als sie nicht mehr makellos sein konnte. Trondheimgasse 12-Ehrmaliger Wohnort". Now we are almost 10 years later after this project. Jochen wrote me that at the moment this commemorative plaque is removed from the building situated at the Trondheimgasse 12. More so, he tells me, there are at the moment NO other incentives in the city of Graz that remind us of Marisa Mell or Marlies Theres Moitzi as a daughter of that town. He was very sad in noticing that the city has done nothing to honor once one of her famous citizens. She has completely disappeared into the trenches of history as if she has never lived in that town. Which is rather strange to me because Vienna still remembers her by having named a street in honor of her the "Marisa Mell Gasse", together with other famous Austrian people like "Romy Schneider". So I wrote a nice email to the mayor, the city council representitive for tourism and the tourist office asking them what kind of commemorative in Graz there is at the moment in honoring Marisa Mell. The next day I got a nice email back from the city council representitive for tourism confirming that he got my email and would answer as soon as possible. After 5 days I still have to receive an email telling me where in Graz I can find some traces referring to Marisa Mell which would be nice to honor her by putting some flowers there. I wonder how long it will take to answer me and aknowledge that sadly there are no such places in Graz. Maybe that is why it took so long to answer me? I'll keep you posted!

Thanks Jochen from Graz for the information and pointing this one out!

"Marisa Mell" by Alfred Cermak

The year 1972 was a busy year for Marisa Mell. One of her prestigeous productions that year was the made-for-TV-movie "Ich möchte eine Möwe sein!" about the life and death of Austrian Empress Elisabeth von Österreich. Romy Schneider had gained world fame during the 1950's with her interpration of this icon and gave her a definitive face and image. Marisa Mell had high hopes about this movie to boost her career but the end result was very disappointing. The critics had a feeding frenzy with this movie! Not only was the direction of the movie by Jörg A. Eggers, later replaced by Theodor Grädler very stale and the script by Willy Fritsch very boring as life must have been at court during that time, but what really drowned and killed this movie was the very...very...very slow pace of the movie! Altough the movie runs for about 80 minutes it looks like an eternity in hell, and even the theatrical acting abilities of Marisa Mell could not save this movie. The only thing that makes this film worthy is seeing Marisa Mell in a historical gown in a magical setting at Schloss Schönbrunn in Vienna, Austria. Although this movie is a made-for-TV there is not many behind the scene material available like for other movies. During the production Austrian freelance photographer Alfred Cermak from Vienna took some behind the scene photo's of Marisa Mell and her counter part Peter Fröhlich, playing her husband the Austrian Emperor Franz Jozef von Habsburg. As you can see the above picture shows a rather tired heavy looking Marisa Mell with harsh facial features. During the production of the movie she had probably to cope with a lot of strain. So the picture is not very flattering but still important enough for the Austrian National Library to keep it in their archives together with the second picture in the entry.

Objectif: 500 Millions!

In autumn and early winter of 1965, Marisa Mell was filming in Paris (France). She was playing the part of fashion model Yo in the black and white French film noir "Objectif: 500 Millions" directed by Pierre Schoendoerffer with Bruno Cremer as her counterpart. The film tells the story of French army Captain Jean Reichau (Bruno Cremer) just released from prison, when he meets fashion model Yo. She proposes him to steal 500 millions old French franks from a postal plane as she is the only one to know the exacte date of the departure of the plane every month from Paris-Orly to Bordeaux. Being an ex-army soldier makes this sting easy for Reichau, knowing how to dive, parachute, handle guns, shoot and kill people if necessairy but the trouble starts when he learns that the man behind Yo is nobody other than the police officer who arrested him a few years earlier and put him behind bars for refusal of a military order in the French Indochine wars! Will he go ahead with the heist and work together with the man who is his sworn enemy or is he going to kill him in revenge for in his eyes unjust arrest in the past? The movie is one of the best Marisa Mell-movies in my opinion. It has a terrific cast opposite Marisa Mell with Bruno Cremer as Jean Richau and Jean-Claude Rolland as Pierre, who sadly commited suicide two years later on the eve of the première of his latest movie. All three are able to carry their difficult parts in this movie with not that many other actors which otherwise would very quicky become rather theater like. What is also a real joy to see in this production is the interaction between Bruno Cremer and Marisa Mell in their different scenes together. You feel the attraction between them but also the distance she has to him and her struggle with her loyality to Pierre. Another real bonus is to hear the own husky voice of Marisa Mell talking in French. In most of her films, especially the Italian and Enlgish talking movies, Marisa Mell is dubbed by another voice actress and often the voice color is totally opposite her own timbre mostly ruining the movie! Being a fashion model in this movie, Marisa Mell has the opportunity to wear some really great cloths and outfits giving her character more depths than usually in her movies. The styling of the cloths was done by "Victoire" of Paris, a then rather well known fashion house! They took their inspiration for this movie mostly from the French couturier André Courrèges. Especially the white cat suite is a direct referal to his style around 1965. What is diffecult to grasp in this movie is what kind of women the director had in mind when casting the role of Yo. As you can see from the different picture grabs, Marisa Mell and her different cloths and styles give a rather mixed image of a mature women in the mid sixties ranging from a diva with a fur coat, seductress in her white cate suit, a school girl with her sweater and skirt, a rich women in probably at that time real leopard skin coat and finally an action heroine in her diving suit. When viewing this movie and the role Marisa Mell plays you notice also the reference to two other European actresses very much en vogue at that time: Catherine Deneuve and Romy Schneider. So it could be possible that the role of Yo had also been offered to those leading ladies in Europe. And finally, as extra bonus, you hear the latest single of French singer France Gall with "Dis A Ton Capitaine". In 1965, she won the Eurovision song contest with "Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son" for Luxemburg. The song became a major hit in Europe that summer. The movie got is première on March 25 1966 in France. Since then it is sometimes seen on French television stations but generally speaken it is forgotten by the general audience.

France Gall-Dis A Ton Capitaine...

Do You Wanna Party, Miss Mell?!?

On March 1st, 1962, Marisa Mell went to the premiere of her latest movie "Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee" based on the work of the British crime author "Edgar Wallace". The original title of the crime novel was "Gangster in London" but the producers thought that after the success of their latest Edgar Wallace movie "Das Geheimnis der gelben Narzizzen" it would be better to put another flower in the title in the hope to generate the same box office! Lightning did not strike twice and the movie did not do that well. The years between 1961-1963, Marisa Mell was mainly filming for the German language market while she was living in Vienna, Biberstrasse 9. On this picture, Marisa Mell is accompanied by another German movie actress Barbara Rütting. She had already a more or less established career in 1962 thanks to the enormous success of the Bavarian heimat movie "Geierwally" while Marisa Mell was still struggling to get major parts. They never made any movies together but the German language movie market and the stable of actors playing in those movies was rather limited so they all knew each other one way or the other! Although 12 years younger, Marisa Mell became good friends with Barbara Rütting during the first years of her movie career before she relocated abroad. When this picture was taken Barbara Rütting had not played in any Edgar Wallace movie but that would quickly change during the next years. In 1963, she played in the movie "Der Zinker", which was very successfull and two years later in another one called "Neues vom Hexer", a follow up to "Der Hexer", probably the most famous Edgar Wallace Krimi movie of all time. In 1967, she would finally play for the last time in a Wallace movie "Das Phantom von Soho", based on a novel by Edgar Wallace's son "Bryan Edgar Wallace". During the 60's, the career of Barbara Rütting was at it's height when she played in 1961 opposite Kirk Douglas in the movie "Town without Pity" and a very scandalous made for TV movie "Die Sendung der Lysistrata" together with Romy Schneider. Like many actors and actresses in the course of their career, Barbara Rütting could not keep up the momentum and she also had to move from movies to television. In the 70's and early 80's, her career shifted to television series like the German Krimi's "Derrick", "Der Alte" and "Ein Fall für Zwei". A lot of production people working on the German TV Krimi's had worked a decade before on the Edgar Wallace movies so it was not strange that also the actors switched to that medium when their careers didn't go anywhere movie wise. During the second part of the 80's, Barbara Rüttings' movie career did come to an end. Professionally her career shifted more and more to writing books which she had started in the mid 70's about healthy living, cooking and other practical advice! She even wrote children's books. During this period, she got more and more involved in politics and animal welfare, especially for the Bavarian Green Party and in 2003, she got elected to the Bavarian Parliament. A job she held untill April 2nd 2009. Due to health issues, at the age of 82, she resigned from her political office! She is now living in Bavaria, Germany with her animals.

Thanks to André Schneider for his valuable input!