The year is 1991. Marisa Mell has been fighting hard to keep her head above water to keep financing an existence after several very difficult years of almost poverty with no movie parts. It had been hard and harsh times. But the times were changing and slowly she was getting back on her feet again. She had just finished the part of Selina in a movie called "I love Vienna" by Turkish origin director Houchang Allahyari. The movie was a social drama filmed in a run down part of Vienna with a lot of foreigners. Although her part was not more than a cameo in several scenes, she played it with a lot of conviction. Gone was the glamourous Marisa Mell, instead she was a women with a history who had almost lost all of her confidence in life, men and...herself. The most import thing for her was that she was filming again and especially that she was home in Austria, Vienna and not abroad in a foreign city or country. The movie was a big success in Austria and German speaking countries. The part of Marisa Mell was noticed again by producers. Several offers for other parts were slowly coming in again. Maybe her career was getting a new boost and she could play, not the sex kitten anymore, but the mature women in dramatic roles. Due to the success of the movie, Marisa Mell was invited to appear in a German talk show to speak about her latest movie and her life of hardship in general. Marisa Mell never kept it a secret that she had gone from a top earning international star to poverty. This photo was taken during the production of that German show! It shows Marisa Mell as a very mature women who had a difficult life but was fighting to keep going on. Although she was only 52 years old she looked tired and older than she really was. Her face was beginning to show the signs of the hardship, struggle of life and abuse of alcohol, drugs and sigarettes. Although this photo looks like a lot of other photo's taken in this period of her life, it is quite an important one because it is the last picture taken of her in public before the news was given to her several weeks later that she was gravely sick. Now her life was again taking a different course and the struggle untill now would be nothing for what was laying ahead of her. A battle that she would loose several months later.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
The Last Picture Show
The year is 1991. Marisa Mell has been fighting hard to keep her head above water to keep financing an existence after several very difficult years of almost poverty with no movie parts. It had been hard and harsh times. But the times were changing and slowly she was getting back on her feet again. She had just finished the part of Selina in a movie called "I love Vienna" by Turkish origin director Houchang Allahyari. The movie was a social drama filmed in a run down part of Vienna with a lot of foreigners. Although her part was not more than a cameo in several scenes, she played it with a lot of conviction. Gone was the glamourous Marisa Mell, instead she was a women with a history who had almost lost all of her confidence in life, men and...herself. The most import thing for her was that she was filming again and especially that she was home in Austria, Vienna and not abroad in a foreign city or country. The movie was a big success in Austria and German speaking countries. The part of Marisa Mell was noticed again by producers. Several offers for other parts were slowly coming in again. Maybe her career was getting a new boost and she could play, not the sex kitten anymore, but the mature women in dramatic roles. Due to the success of the movie, Marisa Mell was invited to appear in a German talk show to speak about her latest movie and her life of hardship in general. Marisa Mell never kept it a secret that she had gone from a top earning international star to poverty. This photo was taken during the production of that German show! It shows Marisa Mell as a very mature women who had a difficult life but was fighting to keep going on. Although she was only 52 years old she looked tired and older than she really was. Her face was beginning to show the signs of the hardship, struggle of life and abuse of alcohol, drugs and sigarettes. Although this photo looks like a lot of other photo's taken in this period of her life, it is quite an important one because it is the last picture taken of her in public before the news was given to her several weeks later that she was gravely sick. Now her life was again taking a different course and the struggle untill now would be nothing for what was laying ahead of her. A battle that she would loose several months later.
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2 comments:
Great write-up. It's so sad that her life turned out the way it did. She definitely faced her share of hardships, some of her own doing and some out of her own control. It's just a shame that her life was cut short. I wonder what she might have been able to do to turn things around. Have a great weekend.
Thanks Keith, I always wondered myself what if... she would probably came to realize that a new fresh start was needed but now acting as a mature women! In my opinion she would probably got a part in some German soap that became quite popular since 1995 in German speaking countries like "Verbotene Liebe" or "Gute Zeiten, Schlechte Zeiten" or telenovelas like "Sturm der Liebe" or "Wege zum Glück".
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