Great love stories: Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni. The most beloved women of Marcello Mastroianni Career in recent years

Chapter 10. ABNORMALITY - 1969 (First chapter about Brodsky) The question of why IB poetry is not published here is not a question about IB, but about Russian culture, about its level. The fact that it is not published is not a tragedy for him, not only for him, but also for the reader - not in the sense that he will not read it yet

Chapter 30. CONSOLIATION IN TEARS The last chapter, farewell, forgiving and pitiful. I imagine that I will soon die: sometimes it seems to me that everything around me is saying goodbye to me. Turgenev Let's take a good look at all this, and instead of indignation our hearts will be filled with sincerity

The dream of millions. They met and then...
Marcello looked at himself in the mirror. Unshaven, dull eyes, dressed haphazardly. But then he heard the sound of familiar footsteps on the stairs. That's her!

Last mercy to the dying

Catherine came to visit him. He made his way to the door with difficulty, opened it and tried to smile. How good! He always admired her - both when he first saw her so close and now. Now he was dying of cancer and realized that everything was hopeless. And she understood. Maybe that’s why she started coming, talking to him, smiling at him. Last mercy to the dying. Well, why wasn’t she so sweet then, twenty-five years ago, when he was ready to throw everything at her feet? Why did the piece of ice in her heart never melt?

Marcello moved away from the window, behind which the evening lights of Paris were glowing, and continued the conversation that had begun on her last visit. He again reminded me that he wanted to be buried in Rome. Catherine winced with displeasure - she didn’t like it when he raised this sad topic.

Footsteps were heard again. Marcello's face again blossomed with a smile - Chiara, his daughter, entered the room. Their daughter. She was a little out of breath - it’s hard for a pregnant woman to climb stairs. Now Marcello was happy: he loved many women, but the love for those who were now sitting next to him could not be compared with anything.

They would stay here a little longer, chat, help him into bed, and leave together. And soon Catherine will cry bitterly, standing next to his coffin in the Parisian Church of Saint-Sulpice at a memorial service. And Chiara will have a baby. Boy. Only Marcello won’t see any of this anymore...

When the door of his Paris apartment slammed behind the guests, Mastroianni indulged in sweet memories.

Two in a room

He saw Catherine on the set of the film “It Only Happens to Others.” They had to play the roles of spouses who had lost a child. At first he looked down on the French actress - could she cope? Yes, she’s attractive and slim, but there are hundreds of them! Another ordinary beauty. Everything changed after an experiment arranged by the director. Nadine Trintignant put them in the same apartment for several days. No TV, no phone, no books.

They had to, without being distracted by anything, experience catharsis, like Nadine herself, who in fact had recently lost her daughter. Trying to understand other people's suffering, during these days they became close in a way that other spouses do not get closer over the years. Marcello saw that Catherine’s coldness and detachment concealed her own fear of losing a loved one, because her sister had died, and she could not recover from grief. Marcello wanted to protect her. From whom? From myself!

Mad Lover

Marcello remembered how he made plans to conquer the French beauty. So what are the plans? She will give up without a fight! He is well over forty, a man in the prime of his life. Italians, Americans, French... He easily charmed them, and then just as easily abandoned them. Moreover, Catherine - he accidentally found out - had just broken up with director Francois Truffaut, and her heart was free... So he reasoned then, in the spring of 70. Naive!

After filming, he returned to his native Rome. Every day he called her in Paris and asked her to come, but Catherine kept finding excuses to postpone the meeting. He shouted that he was ready to take a ticket for the next train himself. And she answered that she was busy, that she had filming, that nothing would work out before a week. What week? He couldn't live a day without her. What has it come to - a grown man bought flowers and wandered the streets, tearing off the petals: “He loves - he doesn’t love”!

Even Flora felt for the first time in twenty years of marriage that things were really wrong. Faithful, loving Flora... The memory of his wife made him smile again. Every Italian man is capable of carrying one love through his entire life. But the objects of love must change all the time. And when his wife understood this simple truth, their marriage became ideal: she loved him, he loved others, but every time he returned to his native safe haven. And now Marcello asked for a divorce! For Italian family- rare. There was such pain in his eyes that his wife gave up.

Bitter tears of despair

Released (so far only in words), he rushed to his beloved French girlfriend, even got an apartment in Paris to be closer. First, I tried to make friends with her son Christian. Child-loving like all Italians, he bought him toys and sweets, tried to take him to cafes and on the carousel. And the boy was drawn to him. But Catherine immediately stopped all his attempts: “Don’t tame him. You leave, but we will stay." Marcello was discouraged. He saw how her eyes sparkled, and her colleagues said that from the moment he moved to France, she was unrecognizable. From a recluse she turned into a regular at restaurants and dance halls. Deneuve literally radiated vibes of passion.

Sophia Loren, Mastroianni's longtime partner on the set, once counterfeited him: “Your Catherine is too cold for a woman in love!” To which Marcello objected: “It’s not true! She even learned how to cook beans.” This argument may seem stupid to us, but Italians know that loving woman becomes an unrivaled cook. Having learned that Mastroianni loved beans, Deneuve learned to cook them in three dozen ways! Isn't this proof of love?

And his proof was a luxurious gift to her - a villa in Nice. Katrin also did not remain in debt - she bought Marcello a red Jaguar. True, her gift was more like a challenge. It’s like: we don’t need anything from you, and even if we do, we don’t care about money either. Mastroianni still could not forget how he went to propose marriage in this very red Jaguar.

I bought champagne, filled the whole back seat with roses... I drove up to that very villa, ran into the house and handed Katrin a diamond ring. I had no doubt about the success of the enterprise. But she, having told him “no,” jumped out like a bullet into the yard, jumped into the car and rushed to Paris, leaving the “groom” in complete bewilderment. And then this handsome man, at whose feet French, Italian, and American women fell, began to cry... He called his dear Flora and began to complain. “What did you expect from this piece of ice?” - she asked and called back to Rome.

And yet Marcello believed that love would win. In September 1971, a message circulated in the newspaper: Deneuve was pregnant, the father was Mastroianni. Federico Fellini's wife Giulietta Masina quipped: “It was only poor Marcello who came up with the last resort to take the impregnable Bastille!”

Marcello recalled the time when they were both expecting a child as the happiest. He accompanied her on trips to the doctor, carefully supporting her by the elbow. And Katrin became much softer, did not drive him away, as happened before.

And how happy I was when baby Chiara was born! He treated everyone he met to champagne. On May 28, 1972, the whole neighborhood was walking! He had other children, legitimate and not, but he called her his most beloved. Maybe because Chiara was the youngest. But Mastroianni always answered questions from journalists the same way: “I really love the mother of this child.”

After the birth of his daughter, Marcello decided to call Catherine down the aisle again. I spent a long time preparing my speech, but when they got into the car, the paparazzi followed them. Katrin, who had been out of sorts since the morning, suddenly braked, smashed the bumper of her pursuers, and picked up speed. The moment for confession was the most inappropriate, but Marcello still squeezed out: “Marry me.” And again I was refused!

It was difficult to understand the reason. Later, many years later, Mastroianni read in an interview why she once refused Roger Vadim, her Christian’s father. Catherine accidentally witnessed his telephone conversation with ex-wife. Annette screamed into the phone that if Roger marries “this Deneuve,” she would forbid him to see his daughter.

Katrin said then that she did not want to be the cause of other people’s misfortunes, much less the suffering of children. And then Marcello remembered that he once had a similar row on the phone with his Flora, and she also threatened to separate him from her own child, and Catherine also heard this. That's why their marriage was out of the question! But why didn’t she explain anything?!

They lived in the same house, but Marcello lost faith in love... He began to drink. And once a friend, actor Michel Picolli, barely held him back when Mastroianni tried to jump overboard. A movie could have saved the situation! Mastroianni ensured that both of them were invited to the filming. And here you go! Deneuve and Mastroianni's fourth film together was Don't Touch the White Woman. But it only got worse: they constantly quarreled, and by the end of the work, Katrin said that the relationship had exhausted itself and invited him to leave.

The only thing that connected them now was their daughter. Marcello remembered how many times he secretly stood outside the school and watched Chiara run home with her friends after school, or hid behind houses and waited until the church service ended and Chiara came out with her mother. I looked and did not dare to approach. Although Catherine never forbade them to see each other...

And now a quarter of a century has flown by! Chiara has grown up, she will become a mother any day now... Soon he will see Chiara and her mother again. After all, they will definitely come to him. Maybe even tomorrow. Marcello fell asleep, lulled by these sweet thoughts...

When Chiara Mastroianni, a French-Italian film star, was asked to participate in the popular French television program “Take Off Your Masks,” she did not hesitate for a moment to tell everyone to go to hell. The fact is that an employee of the TV channel had the imprudence to warn: journalists will not fail to ask her the question whether the beauty of her mother, Catherine Deneuve, suppresses her and whether the fame of her father, Marcello Mastroianni, arouses envy?..
WITHA family legend says: when he first saw the baby, Marcello was amazed at the whiteness of the child’s skin and said: “How bright!” Chiara means "light, pure" in Italian.

And one more thing: frutti d’amore - “fruit of love” - is what Italians usually call late children. When on May 28, 1971, Chiara-Charlotte (that’s her name) full name) was born, Marcello Mastroianni was already fifty, and Catherine Deneuve was almost half that age. Like a true southerner, the temperamental Marcello organized a real fiesta in Paris: he ordered several boxes of champagne to be taken out into the street and treated passers-by with a joyful cry: “I have a daughter!” The great actor rejoiced like a child. When one touched French matron asked a very delicate question: “This is probably your first-born, isn’t it?”, he wrinkled his nose mockingly: “Oh, signora, if I only knew how many children I have!”

In fact, the tireless womanizer Marcello had not only a legitimate daughter from his official wife, Signora Flora, but also many secret “fruits of love” from alcove affairs on the side. Mastroianni did not remember the names of his many offspring and often confused them... But throughout his life he felt an absolutely amazing affection for Chiara. When the paparazzi began to ask him the reason for this passion,

Mastroianni replied: “I adored the mother of this child too much.”

Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni met in 1970 on the set of Nadine Trintignant's film It Only Happens to Others. Marcello went into "mourning" after breaking up with American star Faye Dunaway, and Catherine, who already had a seven-year-old Christian - a son from the French director of Russian origin Vadim Plemyannikov, better known as Roger Vadim - was painfully worried about the recent separation from the French director Francois Truffaut. Both, as a sign of pain and detachment from human joys, wore black glasses outside of filming. Seeing Catherine for the first time, Marcello said in Italian: “Another professional beauty.” She didn’t notice him at all: a filming partner, nothing more. They really were different: Marcello - explosive, unpredictable, sociable, Catherine - cold, like an antique statue, secretive.

According to members of the film crew, the strained relationship between the partners, who were supposed to portray in the film a husband and wife who had lost a child, changed after Nadine Trintignant resorted to the director’s trick. To bring the actors closer, she decided to “imprison” them for several days in an empty apartment without a telephone, TV or radio. After spending a day or two in complete isolation, both came out into the world exhausted and feverishly excited. The episode was filmed on the first try, but the consequences of this directorial move turned out to be very long-lasting.

Catherine and Marcello became lovers. Soon she moved - with an extensive wardrobe, cosmetics and trinkets - into the pavilion created by the film crew for Mastroianni. The month of paradise has begun! “We have found a new source of strength and energy, which can only be love and nothing but love,” Marcello will later say about that honeymoon. Then there was the second film in which they starred together, “Lisa” by Franco Ferreri. While working on it, Catherine and Marcello were already openly acting as lovers.

Mastroianni showered Deneuve with flowers, wrote fiery notes in verse... But he was married, she was married. Moreover, he sought a divorce at any cost, but she was in no hurry at all, she was quite satisfied with the current state of affairs. He tore up contracts, quit filming and, at any opportunity, rushed to Paris to passionately tell her: “I love you!” Be my wife!" She didn’t want to hear about the marriage proposal at all. Catherine did not become more pliable when she found out that she was expecting a child from Marcello. And Mastroianni rushed to buy baby vests and toys for his upcoming “fruit of love.” He sincerely hoped that now Deneuve’s cold heart would be melted once and for all.

When Chiara was born, the honor of taking the first photographs of the newborn went to the fashionable British photographer David Bailey, who remained the official husband of Catherine Deneuve. If Bailey looked philosophically at his marriage with the French film star, with whom, in fact, he never lived together, then Signora Flora Mastroianni declared: there will be no divorce! And so it happened. But if outwardly Catherine Deneuve perceived this situation completely calmly, she nevertheless retained her resentment against Marcello for the rest of her life. In conversations with friends, Deneuve called Mastroianni nothing more than “Chiara’s father.”

The girl lived between Paris and Rome, but was still raised by her mother. “She believed that I shouldn’t become an actress because cinema is too hard work,” Chiara says about Catherine Deneuve. - But dad, on the contrary, encouraged me to pursue an artistic career. He said that we are a family of actors.

“Mom,” Chiara continues, “unwittingly introduced me into her world. She talked about Buñuel, about Truffaut. But never directly about the profession. True, I saw how in the evenings she learns the texts of the roles. I didn’t want to stay on the sidelines, and I started giving my mother cues. So that I would not disturb her, my mother decided to involve me in the case and assigned me male roles - I read the texts for her partners.”

According to Chiara, she was always aware that her parents exist in completely different dimensions: self-confident, tough Catherine Deneuve and sentimental Marcello Mastroianni, lisping with his daughter on the phone. Deneuve, we must give her credit, never forbade her father to meet with her child. Mastroianni and Chiara walked, ate ice cream, fooled around, and then went to the cinema - to a film starring Catherine Deneuve.
Catherine often took her children with her to work, so, quite naturally, both of them became people of art (Christian Vadim is a theater actor and director). “I remember Lelouch’s film For the Two of Us,” recalls Chiara.

When the hero (played by Jacques Dutronc) is released from prison, a little girl in a hood throws herself at his neck. I didn’t see the film after filming and I don’t know whether this scene remained in the final version or not.

But I portrayed the girl - my film debut! And I was so offended that I had to film with the hood pulled down deeply over my eyes. I really wanted everyone to see my face!” Only recently, especially for Chiara’s participation in an entertainment program on Parisian television, the presenter prepared a video of this film - exactly the same episode in which little Mastroianni is busy. She finally saw how her face turned out in the picture close-up, especially the eyes: dark, like two large plums.

“When my mother was filming the film “I Love You,” she and I went to Corsica,” continues Chiara. - There I met Serge Gainsbourg and Gerard Depardieu. I called Depardieu “tutti-frutti” and admired his tattoos...”

Andre Techinet’s film “My Favorite Season,” filmed in 1993, played a major role in determining Chiara’s film biography. Then, for the first time, her mother became the young actress’s partner. And not without a fight! According to Chiara, Catherine Deneuve was at first strongly opposed to inviting her daughter, and Chiara got her role only thanks to the dexterity of the artistic agent. He arranged things in such a way that the episodes with Chiara’s participation were filmed in secret from Catherine. However, after the premiere of the film, the mother’s relationship with Chiara for some reason became strained.

Her daughter even left her house. They reconciled several years later, after Chiara gave birth to Milo, her son.

What's going on here, one can only guess. Did Mademoiselle Deneuve - that’s what everyone calls the actress in France - feel deceived? Perhaps she didn’t want her daughter to repeat her own fate? Perhaps she perceived her rapid ascent to the artistic Olympus not without a share of jealousy?.. The search for answers gives rise to all sorts of rumors and gossip. And the latest gossip is that while filming in France, Deneuve said: Chiara is coming to see her! The producer, as expected, reserved a separate room for the superstar’s daughter in a luxurious hotel palace, but at the last moment Catherine, as a loving mother, preferred that her daughter spend the night with her in her personal apartment. In short, the room for Chiara remained empty... Imagine the surprise of the director of the film when the next morning Deneuve demanded that the money that was supposed to be paid to the hotel for the room be transferred to her: after all, Chiara did not stay in a separate room...

Oh, those evil tongues! What can people come up with!.. But the fact is fact: Catherine Deneuve, who lives in Paris, sent her daughter to the prestigious Fenelon Lyceum to study the Russian language and in every possible way set her up for a career... as an archaeologist! But it turned out differently. At the Lyceum, Chiara met Melville Poupaud, who was interested in cinema and theater (he is also now famous actor). The young people became accomplices and began secretly preparing for an artistic career from the age of sixteen. And so that their parents would not disturb them, they enrolled in the University of Paris as a diversion.

When Chiara came to the acting screening before filming one of Leo Carax's films, she was dressed like everyone else - in jeans, sneakers and a stretched, shapeless sweater. She was not only rejected, but also laughed at: the director was looking for a heroine blue bloods, who knows how to wear exquisite evening dresses with elegance, a real hereditary aristocrat!.. This was her first lesson: Mastroianni’s daughter realized that acting transformation begins far from the set and that there are no trifles in this difficult craft.

However, all this is in the past. Today Chiara Mastroianni shoots a lot - 2-3 films a year. The roles are very different: she is an aspiring journalist, a prostitute, a high-society mistress with S&M habits, and a victim of a serial killer... The actress began to try herself in singing. She is also interested in the computer world. Chiara became the heroine of the new electronic game Atlantis III: New world" The creators of the game borrowed not only the appearance from Mastroianni’s daughter ( long hair, milky skin, a characteristic mole on the cheek), but also a voice.

Chiara lives in Paris, but her temperament is Apennine. Her first husband was the famous sculptor Pierre Torreton, with whom the actress has a five-year-old son. After her divorce from the Frenchman in 1998, Chiara lived with Benicio del Toro for several years. This rising American actor of Puerto Rican origin was crazy about her until - in turn - he was fired. According to the Roman press, since October 2000, Chiara has had a crazy love affair with the Italian actor Andrea di Stefano. Every morning Andrea brought Chiara to the studio on a scooter; every evening he waited touchingly for her at the cinema pavilion. However, the wayward Franco-Italian woman chose freedom this time too. But not for long...

In May 2002, at the city hall of the VI arrondissement of Paris, there was nowhere for an apple to fall. Chiara Mastroianni married the young composer Benjamin Biolet, who is one year older than her. The bride chose a long snow-white outfit Short dress colors Ivory. Catherine Deneuve agreed to be a witness, unlike herself - she was literally glowing with joy. After solemn ceremony, hosted by former Paris mayor Jean Tiberi, the newlyweds and their guests had fun taking photos in the nearby Luxembourg Gardens. But a terrible downpour hit, and the cortege went straight to the banquet - to a restaurant near Place Saint-Sulpice. “Every cloud has a silver lining,” said Catherine Deneuve, who for the first time in her life showed condescension to journalists and agreed to give a mini-interview. “It’s probably not for nothing that people believe: a rainy wedding is a happy one!..”

Peter SOLOVYKH

He was Federico Fellini's favorite, he was forgiven by countless romance novels and three packs of cigarettes a day. On the set, he hugged Brigitte Bardot and Sophia Loren, and the unapproachable Catherine Deneuve gave birth to his daughter. For 20 years now, world cinema has been missing Marcello Mastroianni.

Child of the mountains

Only in the Apennines, where the earth merges with the sky, where the air rings like crystal, could a person be born who was destined not to act, but to live on the screen. To be as natural as these pure, fabulous mountains.

13-year-old Marcello Mastroianni.

Marcello Mastroianni was born into a very poor family, inheriting Jewish hard work from his mother, and Italian character and optimism from his father. The boy's childhood was full of hardships, but warm relations the family fully compensated for this deficiency. When the Mastroiannis moved to Turin, March had a brother, Ruggiero, who later became a cinematographer and starred in several films.

Marcello's youth came at the height of the power of the brutal dictator Mussolini, and the young man was sent by the Nazis to a special camp where people were turned into dumb animals. But Mastroianni managed to escape, risking his life. The young man’s desire for freedom was so strong. This character trait will make itself felt many times in the future, especially in relationships with women.

First steps on stage

What professions did the young man try himself in before the war? He delivered newspapers, worked in construction, was a laborer, an accountant, a draftsman - anything to save money and get the opportunity to become an architect. It was his cherished dream...

Marcello Mastroianni dreamed of becoming an architect.

He entered the construction department of the University of Rome without any problems. While working and getting an education at the same time, Mastroianni attended a student amateur theater, where his extraordinary talent as an actor first showed itself. Tragedy was combined in him with eccentricity, and all this was so natural that it seemed as if not the hero of the play, but March himself was living this life. At the student theater, the young man met Giulietta Masina, the future muse and wife of the great Federico Fellini, which also became a significant event in the life of the future actor.


Marcello Mastroianni, Giulietta Masina and Federico Fellini.

It was here that the famous director Luchino Visconti noticed the young talent and invited Mastroianni to his Eliseo theater. In his fourth year, Marcello abandons his previous dream of becoming an architect, leaves the University and realizes that his calling is different - a world where Melpomene rules.

On the way to glory

The debut at Eliseo was successful. Now Marcello was offered roles in plays as often as any other beginning actor. But the path to glory is difficult and thorny. Yes, he did not pursue fame, he simply loved his craft and played himself.

Marina Vladi and Marcello Mastroianni.

The pearl of cinema of that time was the film “Days of Love”, where young Marina Vladi played the main role along with Mastroianni. The actor, with all the passion of the Italian character, fell in love with his stage partner, but even his devilish charm and onslaught could not force the “witch” to say “yes”. Probably, even then she did not waste her feelings in vain in order to give them to Vysotsky in the future...

A striking work was his role in the film adaptation of Dostoevsky’s novel, where Marcello played an intellectual searching for the meaning of life. It should be noted that in the film “White Nights” Visconti for the first time showed his favorite not in the image of a simple guy from the people, but a thinking cosmopolitan. This was the sensation that raised the ratings of the young actor and made him popular.


Marcello Mastroianni in the film *White Nights* (1957).

But fans of Mastroianni’s talent did not yet see him as a sex symbol, but viewed his heroes as equal ordinary people. And they bombarded the future star with letters, asking for advice in this or that life situation. Apparently, his characters were so sincerely “at home”.

Under the master's wing


Federico Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni during the filming of Eight and a Half

The great Federico Fellini was not only a cult director, but also a wonderful psychologist. His keen eye always chose the kind of material that, when polished, would produce a diamond shining with facets. This happened with his wife, Juliet, who introduced him to her former classmate. And here the director’s intuition did not fail. He saw in Marcello Mastroianni what he had been looking for for years - his “alter ego”.


Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren have appeared in films together more than once.

The master offered him a role in the film “La Dolce Vita,” which brought March world fame and made him the most sought-after actor of that time. In 1960, this film won first place at the Cannes Film Festival, and Mastroianni was awarded the title of best actor of the year.


Mastroianni? Mastroianni!

The fruits of a successful creative union were films that went down in cinema history: “Eight and a Half,” “City of Women,” “The Interview,” “Ginger and Fred.” It is difficult to list all the masterpieces in which Fellini directed his favorite actor. It is interesting to note that strict critics and idle paparazzi of that time spoke only positively about these works.


Marcello Mastroianni and Yvonne Furneaux. Still from the film “Sweet Life”.

Mastroianni was also invited to his films by the famous director Vittorio De Sica. The roles of Don Juans, heartthrobs and hero-lovers were offered here. It was then that the world found a new sex symbol in the person of Marcello. And now the novels have spun him like a tornado.

Italian groom

The actor received all kinds of nicknames: “Latin Don Juan”, and “Italian lover”, and “the first seducer in Europe”. He just grinned and said that he was too lazy to justify these titles. And he commented on dozens of his hobbies like this: “I didn’t count my women, I just loved them.”


Marcello Mastroianni and Faye Dunaway rehearsing a scene from the movie "Lovers"

Is it possible to condemn a man after such a revelation?.. Anyone creative personality, be it an artist, a poet or an artist, you need fresh impressions, like a breath of mountain air, otherwise your talent will dry up, like “an enchar in a desert, scorching hot.”


Mastroianni and Sophia Loren in the film “Marriage Italian Style.”

On the set, Mastroianni warmed in his arms such stars as Brigitte Bardot, Anouk Aimee, Monica Vitti, Jeanne Moreau, Claudia Cardinale, Sophia Loren. He is even credited with having an affair with the latter, but both actors categorically deny this. In an interview, the film star admits that it was so easy to work with Marcello that he almost didn’t have to get used to his role.
And in life his wife had to suffer...

Wise Flora

At the dawn of his artistic career, March married the daughter of the popular Italian composer Flora Carabella. The girl was also an actress, but after getting married, she stopped acting, gave birth to a daughter and devoted herself to her family. As her husband's popularity and infidelities grew, so did the tension in the relationship.

Marcello Mastroianni with his wife Flora and daughter.

At first, Flora, with her characteristic Italian ardor, broke dishes, destroyed furniture, made high-profile scandals. But over time, she realized that Marcello could not be kept by force in the family stable. He needs to let go of the reins, and then, having gained new emotions, he will return home again. Actually, this is what happened. Even if I got carried away new passion, Mastroianni did not forget to send gifts and flowers on holidays to his wife and daughter.


Marcello Mastroianni with his family.

Flora has always remained the only legal wife of the actor. So they lived for many years: he was a sinner and she was faithful, until Mastroianni met Catherine Deneuve on the set.

French dream


Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve.

The film “It Only Happens to Others” became fateful for the actor. Being at a mature age, wise life experience seducing women, Marcello fell in love with Catherine Deneuve like a boy. The beautiful Frenchwoman seemed to be cold towards her film partner, but passion was raging in her soul. The couple began dating secretly, and a year later their daughter Chiara was born, who became the meaning of life for Mastroianni. He loved the child madly; He didn’t feel such emotions towards his first child. Who will dispute the truth that happy children are born only from true love...


Mom, dad, me, but... not family.

Mastroianni repeatedly asked Deneuve for her hand in marriage, but she categorically refused official marriage. In order to conquer “this impregnable bastion of French independence,” the actor divorced Flora and again proposed to Catherine. But the actress continued to answer with a cold “no.” Despite this, Chiara's rejected father flew in from anywhere globe at the daughter's first request.


Chiara Mastroianni with her father Marcelo Mastroianni.

He showered his favorite with gifts and kisses, took her to all the films with Katrina’s participation. And then the girl told her mom how her dad cried when he saw her on the screen...

Man at the window


Mastroianni's grave in the Verano cemetery in Rome.

For all his fame, Marcello Mastroianni was not a demanding person. He said that to be happy he needed a plate of spaghetti, a bottle of Chianti and true friends nearby, and that his position in life was to observe, not to act. This is how the actor lived his life, as if peeping through the window at someone else’s happiness...