The Boyd Affair!

When you do research about the life, and especially the many loves of Marisa Mell, and she had a lot of them, there is always one name, and one name only, that comes to the forefront: Stephen Boyd, most famous for his American peplum movie Ben-Hur with Charleton Heston. Although Marisa Mell had another man in her past whom she loved very much, Pier Luigi Torri, but in my humble opinion, her love for him, was on one side very rational and practical, and he was after all a suave Italian business man with a lot of money at his disposal, and on the other side he was like a surrogate father and protector, she never had in her hard youth in Austria. With Stephen Boyd, it was a complete other story! 

From the first moment she lay eyes on him, Marisa Mell was touched very deeply in her soul and heart. A lot of people say that she fell in love with him because he was still a famous movie star at that moment in time and was a very beautiful manly guy but for Marisa Mell it was a lot more than that. She felt for the first time, and probably the only time in her life, what it was to be truly in love with someone. And I think it is was also the case for him, hence his hesitance at the beginning to start a relationship with her, afraid of losing himself in a romance with this absolutely beautiful woman.

But in the end he gave in and both became a very romantic couple making Marisa Mell, a very happy woman. Photo's of that romance show a very relaxed couple, enjoying their time together, being deeply in love with each other. Unfortunately, the romance was not to be permanent, and both drifted off into different directions of their lives. Sadly Stephen Boyd died very young on June 2nd 1977, due to a heart attack at the age of 45. Had this not happened, maybe, they would have found together in a later phase of their lives. One thing is for sure that Marisa Mell never forgot Stephen Boyd often referring to him when she was in a sentimental mood when getting older...and lonelier. 

Thanks to major Stephen Boyd fan Monica Diedrich for providing these wonderful pictures of the couple!