Helmut Berger and Luchino Visconti

Berger and Visconti were together for 12 years, from 1964 to 1976, when Visconti died. I've wondered if the 'official' story of how they met - Berger as a student was on a vacation trip in Volterra while Visconti was shooting his film Sandra there, and he watched the filming all day, catching Visconti's eye in the process - is really true. Or was the truth something seedier?

The relationship was an open one, at least on Berger's side, and he fucked anything that moved for years, including Bianca and Mick, and Nureyev (who tried to get him to leave Visconti). His major affair seems to have been with Marisa Berenson in the early '70s. She has described him as the love of her life (he says Visconti was his) and wanted to marry him. She says by the time she and Berger got together that he only thought of Visconti as a father and that he and Visconti no longer had sex, but this does not quite line up with what Berger himself has said. I wonder if she wasn't deluding herself about him, at least a little.

Visconti himself was deeply Catholic and socially conservative in a number of ways, as was his aristocratic family. They evidently loathed Berger and kept him from Visconti when the latter's health began declining after a stroke.

There is a real need for someone to write a book focused on their relationship - of the Visconti bios I've read so far, the relationship is only skimmed, and the authors don't seem to have much insight about them.

Visconti certainly was besotted. "Ludwig" and "The Damned" were poisonous love letters to Helmut.

Helmut Berger is now a sad, old, broken-down alcoholic,

It's crazy how dramatically youth fades! Have a back up plan ladies - can't trade on your looks forever. Eventually it catches up to you!

I think Conversation Piece was one as well, R2. Visconti always denied it had autobiographical elements, but those who knew them - including Burt Lancaster - say their relationship is all over it.

Yes, Berger is now a ruin of himself, but in his day he was a glorious sight. Visconti's obsession with him is understandable.

Helmut Berger is a cautionary tale for what happens when you rely on physical beauty and cocky charm and not save money for retirement where your looks and cocky charm have faded.

Quel est le problème?

Why didn't he have a bigger career in Hollywood?

I do know that Berger attempted suicide after Visconti's death, so father figure or no, Visconti was evidently an obsession of Berger's as well.

Depardieu, like Brando and Welles, succumbed to gluttony. With Berger it was booze and drugs.

As difficult as the aging process is for us mere mortals, it must have been pure hell for Berger.

michael york, also a young beauty two years older than berger, has held up rather well, until he came down with a rare blood disease

"As is often the case with rare diseases, York’s condition was misdiagnosed for several years, before a doctor at the Mayo Clinic who specializes in amyloidosis realized that he had the disease, not the cancer that doctors diagnosed initially. His disease has been in remission for the last three years."

Berger always looked like a mean, toxic asshole. he probably has now the face he deserves. Visconti, mind you, was not a nice person either.

Berger stinks up 3 of Visconti's 14 feature-length films--a tragically high percentage.

I wonder what Lancaster, in Conversation Piece, thought of Berger. Massimo Girotti, a Visconti discovery for 1943's Ossessione, was a beauty who could act. I suppose Death in Venice might be a parallel to the Visconti/Berger dynamic.

Girotti was smokin in Obsessione

and was still a hot daddy 25 years later when seduced by the gorgeous terence stamp in Pasolini's "Teorema"

R15 Burt probably didn't have to act too hard to convey his affection for the troubled lad in "Conversation Piece"

Massimo died at 84, just after finishing "Facing Windows," in which he played a lonely gay man.

Visconti showcased Farley Granger in Senso. It was Granger's favorite of all his movies.

"I cried all the way to work and laughed all the way to the bank"

Helmut on his Dynasty stint (that really was weird casting)

[quote]Why didn't he have a bigger career in Hollywood?

Too European, accent too strong, too gay (yes, I know he's bi. But to Hollywood in this instance, there was no difference). Plus after doing something like The Damned, how the hell could you settle for typical Hollywood pablum?

R9, I do think the obsession was mutual. Berger himself has described Visconti as both his husband and 'the father of my choice'. That's why I mused that maybe Marisa Berenson was kidding herself somewhat about what the bond between Berger and Visconti was. You don't try to off yourself after Daddy dies.

Several years ago, Berger was interviewed for a BBC documentary about Visconti. Here he discusses his attendance at Visconti's funeral. He has said elsewhere that the Visconti family - rich, aristocratic, and homophobic as hell - made it difficult to impossible for him to be with Visconti during his decline. They also made it clear he wasn't welcome at the funeral, which he attended anyway, bringing an arrangement of gardenias (which Visconti loved) only to have them repeatedly take the flowers away, which he discusses here. There's no doubt in my mind that they intentionally 'lost' Visconti's will to keep Berger from getting what Visconti had intended for him to have.

Starts around 5:12:

Has anyone here seen that bizarre documentary that was done on Berger a few years ago, the one where he is said to jerk off on camera? There were trailers released from it but the actual documentary isn't available anywhere?

helmut speaks

R23 Isn’t Berger kind of homophobic himself? And like he sort of outgrew his homosexual ‘phase’ and prefers women, no?

Well, Berger is a bitchy, bitter old queen. To what extent someone like that, from that generation, is homophobic, who knows. He says he prefers men over women now and has for a long time, but still considers himself bisexual. His marriage to a woman back in the '90s didn't even last two years before they went their separate ways, and in 2015 he had a commitment ceremony with Florian Wess, an overly-botoxed German reality TV star in his thirties, though that didn't last long either. Certainly he was more out, open and comfortable with himself that Visconti ever was. Visconti insisted on the two of them having separate rooms, and would make Berger go back to his own bed at night because he didn't want his servants to know about them. As if his servants, the people who clean and do the laundry and are always there could have possibly been clueless about their employer being gay...

R25 well ain't he just the cutest Apfelstrudelmitschlagundscheiss!

[quote]There were trailers released from it but the actual documentary isn't available anywhere?

It seems to have only been shown at festivals, and I think I saw something in comments on Youtube about Berger having been engaged in a legal fight with the filmmaker over it, which is why it hasn't had any further release. Not sure if that's trustworthy but it seems very possible.

There's another, more recent documentary about Berger made by a female filmmaker, whose mom had idolized Berger in her youth and was horrified to see what a wreck he'd become. So she invited him to come and stay with them in the country and try to get his shit together, which he apparently did for a while. According to the little available about this film in English, he and the filmmaker visit some places associated with him and Visconti in the past, such as Visconti's big house on Ischia, where Berger hadn't been since Visconti died.

BBC documentary (R23 extract) was excellent, Berger parts especially. IIRC from it: 1) R1 they met first in Austrian village where Visconti was shooting a film in an inn ran by Berger's family. 2) Berger hates Alain Delon, thought he wanted to steal Visconti from him. No idea if this rivalry was only in Berger's head, but still many decades later in the documentary he comes off angy. 3) Berger amusingly tells how Visconti, who played communist ally publicly, actually had many servants who were not even allowed to speak to him. He communicated with his cook through notes. R27 I don't remember about sending Berger to his room. Visconti couldn't care less what his servants thought.

Berger said in his autobiography that he and Visconti slept in separate bedrooms at Visconti's insistence, that they'd spend whatever time they were going to spend together and then Berger would go back to his own room because Visconti insisted on discretion. He definitely lorded it over his servants, but he also made an effort to hide his private life from them, and from most people, really. For him, his homosexuality was something that he conducted in very particular ways. When a friend offered to take him to a gay bar in New York once, he refused; he was appalled at the whole idea of a gay bar - he thought it was graceless and tacky. Helmut, on the other hand, was going to glory holes in NYC with Egon Von Furstenberg...

Visconti was shooting Sandra (Vaghe Stelle Dell'Orsa) with Claudia Cardinale when he met Helmut - that was in Italy, in Volterra, not in Austria.

R31 re sleeping rooms: if Berger said so, ok. Maybe he didn't say that in the documentary, at least I don't remember. Re when they met: yours could be the official version, better then the one with even younger Helmut in his parents Alpine inn/hotel. What was in BBC documentary? I guess I remember that version from the documentary, even with some photos of Visconti filming around Alpine inn.

Berger was interviewed by the author of a Burt Lancaster biography and he said he had a crush on Burt and that he thought of leaving Visconti for Burt.

Visconti already had a stroke when they were filming Conversation Piece and Burt stepped in as a director when Visconti wasn't up for it.

Burt of course always had rumors about him swinging both ways. He did nude pictures for gay magazines while he was working as a circus acrobat and before he became a Hollywood star.

Berger has completely gone off the rails, notorious for his drunken rants on TV.

YES!!! R16

R24 I saw it at the Melbourne Film Festival at few years ago. It was really kind of sad and yes he does jerk-off on camera after the director shows him his own cock (which we don't see). Poor Helmut can hardly get it up and whilst yanking at his meat utters the words 'aristocrat' than 'Burt Lancaster'.

Poor thing smokes like a chimney too and is constantly showering himself in perfumes to help take away the odour. 'Friends' also sponge off me when he makes a little money then desert him when he is broke.

"Berger was interviewed by the author of a Burt Lancaster biography and he said he had a crush on Burt and that he thought of leaving Visconti for Burt. "

They had to be fucking then, you don't think of a leaving your partner/mentor for a crush that's unrequited.

Hawt!

Joan Collins wrote in one of her memoirs about Berger’s stint on “Dynasty”: According to Collins, Berger couldn’t handle the grueling hours involved in hour-long episodic television, especially when he was out all night partying.

Why would he jerk off on camera?? Was he getting paid extra to do it?

R38 This is R35. Attention seeking and I think he was trying to lure the director, who remains off camera for the whole film - we only ever here his voice. At one point in the film Helmut is screaming at the director in a rage and the police turn up!

He was clearly a very difficult subject matter for the director. Highly temperamental, boozing and smoking, had a fair amount of prescription medicine around. His apartment (which is probably Public Housing) is a mess though a cleaning woman (who is interviewed) cleaned it up well enough. She was very sympathetic of him. Still living in his past glories too. Bitching about Visconti's family and who much he got along and liked Glenda Jackson too I recall.

The film is 'trash yourself' cinema but I must admit exploitive to a degree.

So, R39, Berger aged into a typical Datalounger?

R40 Actually, yes.

Recently re-watched THE DAMNED which was Visconti's attempt at a star-making vehicle for Berger. The performance is pure camp, Berger is really out of his depth, and his speaking voice was awful. But good Lord was he stunning to look at. Just pure beauty with a facial structure that was somehow both chiselled but soft and a gorgeous, plump ass (which he bares in the film). He developed some skill as an actor (not much, mind you) to be relatively effective in LUDWIG and CONVERSATION PIECE, his later collaborations with Visconti. Sadly he seems a total wreck these days, though he has a touching small role as the old Yves Saint-Laurent in the French biopic of a few years ago.

The soundtrack for Dorian Gray is pretty awesome.