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her in full frontal nudity, even knowing that she was quite comfortable showing her nude body and the photo shoot was originally made in full frontal nudity by both actors with their agreement.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.)
3 comments:
Hey Mirko. Great shots. I had never seen those before. Wow! These two looked great together. I've always been a big fan of Helmut. I've got a bisexual friend who's got a huge crush on him. Thanks for sharing these with us here. Cheers!
Hi Keith, I also like this photo shoot very much because MM was at the hight of her beauty at that time! Regarding Helmut Berger, to me he never recovered from the death of Visconti and lost himself untill this day in drugs, always dragging other people with him in his downfall, like MM, who used a lot of drugs with him at that time, sadly, for which she payed a very high price in the end! The carreer of Helmut Berger went nowhere after that although he is an extremely talented actor! Pity!
Two great people! Sad to see the nudity censored.
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