During the 80's, Marisa Mell really started to hit rock bottom trying to earn money from her movie career. She was so desperate to tap into new income sources that she started to sing, with no success, and then tried her hands at fine art by making drawings! I knew of a self portrait she had made for an exhibition. I had never seen any other art work by her hands, so I was very pleased to receive recently a notice from a good friend in Brasil of an auction of her work on the internet. After checking out the auction site and the art work at hand, it had all the elements making this piece a Marisa Mell drawing. But the question remained: was this a genuine Marisa Mell or not?
The drawing had her characteristic signature at the bottom which she used since the beginning of her career when she adopted her movie name "Marisa Mell" starting with a well formed "M" and ending with her typical writing of the double "L", even the numbers "8" and "5" are written in her own well known style, a signature that I have seen on dozens of autographed pictures by her hand. And this one was the real deal!
Then there was the dedication "Für Nikos An Weihnachten 1985 Marisa". I knew that Marisa Mell had once a relationship with a much younger man called Nikos around that time, so that part of the drawing was also correct. And I had seen the drawing of a little heart in the vicinity of her name on countless other autograph cards, so that was also correct.
And finally what was the most convincing element of the drawing was the style of the art itself. It was completely in accordance with the style of her self portrait that I had seen before. So in the end counting all those elements I came to the conclusion that this drawing was the real deal. A piece of art made by Marisa Mell.
And do I like it? Yes and no! Yes, because I like the quirkiness of the style which is very raw and elemental, even aggressive. No, because I feel no connection to it on an emotional level. Nevertheless I am glad that this piece of art still exists today and is still worthy to be sold in an auction by an auction house. I think that Marisa Mell would have smiled when she knew about this.
//
Thanks to Daniel from Brasil for his help in finding this little gem!
Mounting this exhibition was logistically as an enormous task a nightmare, not to mention the security risks and the steep insurance fee to be payed to cover all these art works against theft, agression and arson. But finally on October 25th 1966 the exhibition "Hommage à Pablo Picasso" held in the Grand Palais and Petit Palais in Paris not far from the Champs Elysée as a retrospective of his artistic career could open its doors and welcome the man in who's honor all this was done. 
The complete beau monde of the 60's was invited on opening night starting with the French president and his kabinet members over other famous creative artists down to actors and actresses on the A-list, including Marisa Mell.
Although located in Rome, Italy and mostly working for the Italian movie industry, Marisa Mell had in the spring of 1966 a French movie "Objectif: 500 millions" premièred on the Champs Elysée. Although not a financial success it still had drawn attention in the public eye to the fate of the French soldiers and mercenaries who had fought in the Algerian war and the way the French state had treated them once back from Algeria often with no means to survive than starting a criminal career. The part of Marisa Mell was not overlooked by the yellow press who always could use a new fresh beautiful face to write stories about. So she was invited to attend this exhibition. What not many people know is that Marisa Mell had always been interested in painting and paintings since early childhood and meeting Pablo Picasso must have been a joy for her.
Nude photography for skin magazines like Italian Playboy or High Society was one venue for a beautiful women in her 40’s but that source would dry up very easily due to the limited amount of quality nude magazines in the world unless she made the transfer to hardcore porn like Karen Schubert, another Austrian Eurocult actress, did in 1985, after the end of her film career.
(BTW what did happen to Karin Schubert after her porn career died? Where is she living now?) That was a road Marisa Mell was not willing to take, although she got some very tempting offers to cash in on her still very recognisable name in Southern Europe, especially in Italy and Spain. So around mid 1980’s she left expensive Rome and her sunny Italian lifestyle and came back to Vienna, her home town since her theatre school days, directing her career into another kind of segment of the arts like… drawing and painting, hoping to make another decent living. During the year 1988, Marisa Mell had painted together some kind of body of work that was good enough in her eyes to be shown to the world. One of those exhibitions was held in Vienna where she made the acquaintance with another young creative women at the beginning of her own career in photography. The beautiful lady was called Irene Rohrmoser.
Irene Rohrmoser remembers: "That is a picture from long ago, so I do not remember much about it. What I do remember is that Marisa Mell was living again in Vienna, after her stay in Italy. She had no money. It was one of two evenings that I have met her. The exhibition had as central theme "dogs" that Marisa had painted. I think that it were "Malthesers" but I am not sure of it. My job at the exhibition was to document it for the press. I also remember her being very charming and nice with a deep velvety voice. During the meeting we had a nice talk about creating pictures and the subject of probably new exhibitions like animals which she liked very much. This is the only picture that I have of her. The other time that I met her was during the premiere of her last movie called "I love Vienna" together with other actors of the movie. She also was an actress on stage of the Wiener Rathaus. I know that during X-mas 1991 she was so needing that she had accepted a job as cook for a Vienna priest called "Father Laun". A few months later she sadly died. Thanks to this nice priest she received a grave on the Kahlenbergerdorf Graveyard, being so poor she was otherwise not able to afford one." 
During the following years Irene Rohrmoser went on to become a prominent commercial photographer in Vienna, Austria. During her professional life she discovered her talent to take stunning photos of every day objects like flowers, drops of water, rocks... and turn those photos into very powerful meditational pictures that vibrate on a conscious and subconscious level for the viewer that sees them. 
But let's hear Irene Rohrmoser tell us about this wonderful meditational tool in her own words:
