"Marisa Mell" by Pierluigi Torri

Senza Via D'Uscita!

Marisa Mell was in a relationship for several years with a very known Italian playboy Pier Luigi Torri, who dabbled as a movie producer, a night club owner, a mob confidant and a drug dealer to fill up his spare time throwing around his money. So when your girl friend is one of the most beautiful women and actresses in Italy and the world at that time you need to keep her satisfied, hence he produced a movie especially for her, showing her best "assets" in full glory! Marisa Mell played the part as sex kitten and seductress extra-ordinaire to the hilt. The movie was shot in Barcelona, Spain in 1969 and premiered in early 1970. The first three photo's are promotional photo's to sell the movie to the Spanish readers of a movie and gossip magazine where Marisa Mell again declared her enduring love to Spain and the Spanish people (of course!) and announced her next movie "El Perfecto Amoral", produced by José Frade and directed by Nieves Condé, which in the end never happened! In the last photo, Marisa Mell as the sex kitten has to show some leg to entice the readers to go see the movie of her boy friend Pier Luigi Torri, which in the end was not a big success. Luckily for us they would never work again together and shortly after the relationship came to a brutal end. 

"Time to say goodbye, Darling!"

Before the "it"-boys and girls on the internet, movie star Marisa Mell and her long time lover and professional playboy Pier Luigi Torri, were for years the center of high society and paparazzi Rome, mingling with everybody living in the Holy City, like other movie stars, artists, politicians, clergy, and ... criminals. And when you own, one of the most famous night venues in Rome, like Torri did with his bar and night club "Number One", it does not take long to draw the attention from the authorities into your wheeling and dealings. For an in depth account of these tumultuous years for both of them I refer to a previous entry on this blog "The Number One Couple".  To escape conviction and long prison time Pier Luigi Torri fled Italy in 1971 in a much publicized endeavor. On August 17th 1972, the playboy was finally arrested in Munich, Germany, by the police and handed over to the Italian authorities. The above picture of the famous couple is regarded as their last picture together, both looking very stressed, knowing that time is running out. Several days later Torri fled Italy leaving Marisa Mell behind. Their relationship was over! They would never form a couple again.

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!

The Roman Ivy

Rome, Italy, was once in the 50's and 60's together with Paris and London THE hotspot for the movers and shakers in this world. The advantage of Rome above the other cities was her sunny and warm climate almost all year round so people had a very busy day and night life. And Marisa Mell, being an admirer of the sun, enjoyed each and every minute of it while she lived in that town for more than 20 years. 

And just like her American counterpart the restaurant "The Ivy" in Los Angeles where nowadays you can see actors, agents, and all kinds of movie people eat during their luchtime, Rome had also her "ivy" to cater to people working in the movie business, most of all at Cinecitta! And what better way to be seen with your rich lover, in this case Pier Luigi Torri, than dining on a terrace in front of the restaurant.

If you would like to know more about the passionate love story between Marisa Mell and her playboy then you need to read the Marisa Mell book by André Schneider called "Die Feuerblume", available at Amazon in the US, UK and Germany.

Marisa Mell: Die Feuerblume

Lucifera (Fumetti per Adulti)

In the past I have written on this blog about a known fact that Marisa Mell was used as a model for the Chilian erotic spy comic Satanka. So one day while researching the life and work of Marisa Mell for possible entries for this blog I saw this picture of Marisa Mell in a Catholic nuns habit while smoking a cigarette. The picture is a publicity photo from her 1964 only British movie "French Dressing". I archieved the picture for later reference and possible usage on the blog! Months passed. Untill last summer I was reading the dark Italian erotic fumetti "Lucifera" and saw these next two pictures in the comic book.

In this story the devilish Lucifera is trying to steal as a Catholic nun the Holy Grail as a token of her loyality to her master and lover in hell the Devil. And nothing ever goes as planned with Lucifera so troubles arise on the horizon and Lucifera has to master them in her own special way to achieve her goals, meaning a lot of seduction and sex! But that is another story!

While reading this story it hit me! Before my eyes appeared the Marisa Mell picture in her Catholic nuns habit. And the resemblance of both pictures and the drawn Lucifera was remarkable. The features of Lucifera like the shape of her eye brows, eye lashes and lips of her mouth were very Marisa Mell-like! So the question popped up in my head: Could it be that Marisa Mell had been the template for the dark Italian fumetti heroine "Lucifera"? Although it might seem far fetched in reality it was not in my opinion. Why? 

 During the height of the dark Italian fumetti in the 60's and 70's like Lucifera, Jacula, Maghella, Biancaneve, Sukia, Jolanda and their male counterparts the publishers were always trying to make their comic book heroes appealing by giving them often faces of well known people at that moment in time. The classic examples are French actor Alain Delon as the private detective "Playcolt" or again French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo as again private detective "Goldrake". 

So if the Italian comic book artists took well known populair actors as a role model for their heroes, why shouldn't they have taken the face of Marisa Mell as a template for the face of she-devil Lucifera?

Lucifera was published from 1971 to 1980 by Italian comic publishing house "Ediperiodici" running for 170 issues. A French edition of the comic ran from 1972 to 1980 for 99 issues and was pubished by Elvifrance. Some very famous Italian comic book artists worked on the comic like Edoardo Morricone, Tito Marchioro and the best known of them all, Leone Frollo, who created the heroine and gave her, her distinguised looks like her almond shaped eyes, thick eye lashes, the curved eye brows and above all the thick flowing hair split in the middle above her eyes by a triangular pony. In fact, you can regard the she-devil Lucifera as the male version of the other dark fumetti hero "Diabolik". He also has the same almond shaped eyes, thick eye lashes and the curved eye brows.

Marisa Mell came to Rome, Italy in the year 1965 and was a major star in the movies and the yellow press in 1971, the year that Lucifera was created, just after the much publisized romance with film producer and club owner Pier Luigi Torri and his notorius club "Number One", hangout for everybody rich and famous, stars and starlets in 60's Rome. So Leone Frollo was quite familiar with the face and body of Marisa Mell and probably found in her the perfect model for his next creation: Lucifera. And he was not wrong about that. Lucifera became an instand hit among erotic fumetti lovers untill this day and age. Complete collections of Lucifera comic books in prestine condition fetch top money at the moment around 5000 euros. And thanks to the modern means of communications like Ipad and tablets Lucifera or Marisa Mell will live on for generations to come, even in color.

Pier Luigi Torri dies at age 85!

On March 19th 2011, according to IMDB, one of Marisa Mell's major protagonists in her life, has died at age 85 in Rome, Italy. Pier Luigi Torri is a name that for ever will be connected to Marisa Mell's life in good but more often in bad ways. They were at that time during their romance (!)between 1967-1971 known as the "Number One"-couple in reference to the hot spot nightclub "Number One" in Rome. The nightclub was partially owned by Torri and some of his friends, connected to the high society of Rome but also, often to the darker regions of society, in Italy, it means "organized crime". The romance and some say marriage, which probably took place in Barcelona, Spain, around 1969, was to say the least very tumultuous with a lot of drama, violence and in the end a miscarriage for Marisa Mell in 1969 during the Cannes Film Festival. The couple was "gefundenes fressen" for the Italian and world yellow press. Marsia Mell has often stated that she was regularely hit by Pier Luigi Torri. Nevertheless she stayed with him untill his drug connections blew up in his face and he had to escape to London, England in 1971, in an attempt to stay out of jail. The relationship with Pier Luigi Torri had a major impact on the life of Marisa Mell, which in my opinion, she never recovered from and which derailed her entire life and future because in her heart she really loved the man as her soul mate. For Pier Luigi Torri she was the trophy movie star and taken for granted. After his jail time, Torri returned back to Italy, Romy and started a new family resulting in a son and a daughter. Pier Luigi Torri survived Marisa Mell for 32 years! More in detail can be read on this Marisa Mell blog in previous entries!

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Thanks to André Schneider for the information about the death of Pier Luigi Torri!

No Way Out!

Movie making and movie business are a strange profession where back stabbing is often the rule of the day than the exception if you ask people working in that field! Why would someone trying to work in such an environment populated with super ego's is often a mystery to outsiders. So it is not strange that during the production of a movie this movie undergoes a complete transformation from original script to final product shown at the première of the movie. Script rewrites, changing production firms, casting and re-casting of stars and starlets, new film titles, scenes being cut or entered without knowledge of key production people... you name it, it has been done all for the higher good of making a masterpiece in someone's vision or trying to save the ruins and one's investment.When you are fan of Euro cult movies you are familiar with this kind of movie bashing! Most of these movies have been tampered with one way or the other. This is mostly done by the producers of the movie because they are the ones giving the money to pay the whole product and so have the final word in the end. Distributors of a movie in a certain movie market are the next group of people who often molest a movie to fit the product into their vision or making the biggest buck in a short period without respect for the artistic vision of the director or movie maker. So each Euro cult star has in his or her filmography prime examples of this.
Althoug there are other movies on the filmography of Marisa Mell which fit the bill a good example is the 1970 movie "Senza Via D'Uscita". On first sight this is a run of the mill Euro cult movie but when you delve a little deeper this movie is a real gem. The movie is an Italio-Franco-Spanish production so that does not bode well. This movie has as official Italian title "Senza Via D'Uscita" but is also known in Europe as "Las Fotos De Una Mujer Decente" in Spain , "La Machination" in France (not to be mixed up also in France with a movie with the same title "La Machination", another Marisa Mell movie with original title "Una Sull'Altra), "Terrori" in Finland or "No Way Out" in England.In the US this movie is sometimes known as "Diabolical Mistress"
but the movie is best known as "Devil's Ransom".And I am sure that it has a lot more other titles on video boxes during the height of the video nasties in the rest of world.
Another point of discussion could be what kind of movie this really is: a giallo, a horror movie, an action movie,...? What is it going be, bub??? Depending on the domain the movie is all of the previous and none of it! You are free to pick what you like best! When you ask fans of the movie than the pendle would swing in the direction of a "giallo" above all the rest.
What is certain (!) is the fact that this movie was produced by Pierluigi Torri or better known at the end of the 60's beginning of the 70's as Mr. Marisa Mell. On this blog is enough written about the tumulteous relationship between those two people. This movie was a gift of love from Pierluigi Torri to his wife Marisa Mell. Torri was always credited in the papers and yellow press as a movie producer in regard to Marisa Mell so it was only fitting that he should produce a movie for his beloved (!) wife. Unfortunately he had to flee Italy before the movie was finished and hitting the theatres on criminal charges.
The movie is credited to be written by Tiziano Cortini, Julio Salvador and Piero Sciumé. The first two have several movies to their credit as actors and/or writers but the last one is a little bit of a mystery.Officially Piero Sciumé is credited also as the director of this movie next to being the screen writer.

When surfing the internet there is no picture of him to be traced or much more information for that matter than some info on IMDB. He has one credit as an actor in a 1968 German production "Die grosse Treibjagd", two credits as writer next to this movie for another Italian movie called "Riuscirà il nostro eroe a ritrovare il più grande diamante del mondo? in 1971 and finally as script supervisor for the movie "La Tumba dela Isla Maledita". And that is it! After that this man vanishes from the Earth, never to be heard of again! No problem until you look closely on the ads for the American distribution of the movie under the title "Diabolical Mistress" and "Devil's Ransom" you see that the movie had as "executive producer and director Ray Danton"! "Ray Danton" - What the f*ck! Where did he come from?

Ray Danton , also known as Raymond Danton, was a radio, film, stage, and television actor, director, and producer whose most famous role was in "The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond" in 1960. He was married to actress Julie Adams. In the 60's he had two careers on both sides of the pond. He played in many American television series like Hawaii Five-O, Cannon, Matt Helm... and at the same time starred in several Euro cult movies like "Corrida pour un Espion" and "New York Chiamo Super Drago", starring non other than Marisa Mell in the female leading part.

So how does this all fit together, my dear Dr. Watson? In 1966 the Italian James Bond clone "New York Chiama Super Drago" was released with Ray Danton and Marisa Mell in the lead roles. During the production of that movie both actors became friends and kept in touch after the end of the movie production. When Pierluigi Torri was on the look out several years later for a possible director for his movie starring his then wife Marisa Mell she reminded him that her one time co-star Ray Danton always wanted to be a director of movies next to his movie career. It would also be a nice back up if his movie career might dwindle. Both parties got together and a deal was made but there was an unsurpassable hurdle to conquer. Italian law and trade unions at that moment prohibited non-Italians to work on an Italian movie production behind the scenes. The Italian film trade was closed for foreigners. Therefor the producer had to make a ruse for the autorities. Officially the movie would be directed by Piero Sciumé but unofficially the director would be Ray Danton. Because this was his first directional debut he was also willing to participate in the funding of the movie and became also unofficially "executive producer". So everything was in order for the powers-that-be in Italy. All the official Italian commercial ads, press books,... would always mention Piero Sciumé as director of the movie! For the American market there was no problem to mention that the movie was executive produced and directed by Ray Danton. Hence it was even a bonus in promotion of the movie because the audience knew Ray Danton as an actor of beloved American series so they would certainly go see the movie that he directed. As a thank you for Piero Sciumé to be the beard for Ray Danton the actor played the next year in 1971 a leading part in the next movie written by Piero Sciumé which also had him as an assistant director "Riuscirà il nostro eroe a ritrovare il più grande diamante del mondo?" For Ray Danton was this directoral debut the beginning of a very succesfull career as a televsion director from 1970 untill 1984 with series like Dallas, Dynasty, Incredible Hulk, Quincy M.E., Cagney and Lacey, Fame, Magnum.... Case closed.

Tell Me On A Sunday!

Marisa Mell in Rome with her beloved Afghan hound Rocco not looking very happy that she was discovered by paparazzi in her pregnant state and rather dull outfit.

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The year is 1977. Marisa Mell is 38 years old and living partly in Rome and partly in Madrid. She is still working in the Eurocult movie business, mostly doing Italo-Spanish movies, but her reputation as a man hungry women and her age is slowly affecting her career. Although her beauty was still untouched at that time, her soul was not. She once said "Every man wanted me, but no man wanted to keep me." And that was the harsh reality of her life untill the very end. Like almost every women she also longed to have a faithfull husband and some children to come home too when a days job on the movie set was over or when coming back from an engagement abroad. She had high hopes to reach that goal with two men in her life: Pier Luigi Torri from Italy and Espartaco Santoni from Spain. But both men disappointed her heavyly. Torri became a fugitive and went several years behind bars in London (UK) after the "Number One" Nightclub fiasco with drugs and an organized crime involvement; Espartaco Santoni declared several times in the yellow press that Marisa Mell was the women of his life and that they without any doubt would get married in the near future. Fact was that after a two year relationship, after Marisa Mell was single again when Pier Luigi Torri fled Italy, that he also left Marisa Mell in 1975 for another starlet/model named Carmen Cervera. ("Who is that???", you might ask! Well, look her up on Wiki and you'll see that her life is much more interesting than even Alexis's life on the soap "Dynasty" as a gold digger! She reached fame and extreme fortune in the end when she married and than became widow of the extremely wealthy high society Baron Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza.) So once again she was single and on drift. Although Marisa Mell was regarded by the yellow press as a strong modern women in reality she was very insecure and longed to have a strong man in her life that she could depend on. Several months after her seperation from Espartaco Santoni rumour started to spread among the Italian-Spanish incrowd that Marisa Mell was pregnant. Problem was that she was not a socialite at that moment so confirmation was very hard to get untill one sunday morning in the autumn of 1977 when paparazzi found Marisa Mell walking with her beloved Afghan hound Rocco and a young man in a park in Rome. The paparazzi did not let escape this golden opportunity and took several photo's of her clearly showing her belly as a pregnant women. There was no doubt about that. Marisa Mell was pregnant again. This was not the first time. At the end of the 60's, in 1969, when she was with Pier Luigi Torri, Marisa Mell got pregnant but during the Cannes Film Festival she lost her baby due to a miscarriage, she always claimed. Other people claim that she had an abortion. Taking pictures of Marisa Mell in her blessed state was not enough for the paparazzi. They wanted to know who the father was of the child. During that conversation with the press Marisa Mell refused to tell it. The journalists recognized the man she was with as actor Gianni Macchia, but was he the father or was it another lover in her past? Several months before this meeting in the park, Marisa Mell had a relationship with a pianist called Maurizio Libardo. Problem was that he was 20 years old, or 18 years younger than Marisa Mell. Could he be the father of the baby? In the yellow press at that time, speculation went wild. The magazine "Lecturas" headlined: " Marisa Mell espera su primer hijo a los 38 años". Untill this day nothing, to my knowledge, is known about the father of the child. It becomes even more mysterious. How did the pregnancy end? Fact is that Marisa Mell did not give officially birth to a child during her life. Did she had another miscarriage or did she deliver the baby but gave it up for adoption or was the baby during the course of pregnancy still born? A lot of questions with no answers for the moment! Maybe to be continued!

Marisa Mell with Italian actor Gianni Macchia in an staged embrace.

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What is also strange is the fact that Marisa Mell is smoking while pregnant hence the ever present cigarette in her right hand.

Cannes Film Festival-May 8th 1969

On May 8th 1969, almost every star and starlet from the end of the sixties had a rendez-vous on the Côte d' Azur in Cannes for the 22nd Cannes Film Festival. The clip is from the opening night when the guests of honor like Sylva Koscina, Omar Shariff, Romy Schneider, Vanessa Redgrave and... Marisa Mell arrived at the opening diner. Marisa Mell's career was gaining momentum with movies like "Danger: Diabolik" and "Una Sull'Altra" so she was in the centre of attention together with fellow eurocult star Sylva Koscina. In this clip Marisa Mell arrives at the diner and is being photographed by paparazzi. In another part of the clip she is sitting at her diner table with husband of that time Pier Luigi Torri. Marisa Mell probably got her invitation to the festival via her friend Helmut Berger whose lover Luchino Visconti was President of the Jury for the film competition.

The clip has no sound, bad lightning and picture quality.

April 1st - April Fool's Day

On Tuesday April 1st 1980 the local German newspaper "Hamburger Abendblatt" published in their edition this article about the pregnancy of Marisa Mell. (See previous entry on this blog!) The casual reader, who is not familiar with the life of Marisa Mell, accepts the info in this little article as true, but the more informed reader who had followed her life in the papers and yellow press knows that this article is a hoax for April 1st or April Fool's Day. Finding the origin of April Fools' Day is not easy and is probably lost in history. Some theory claimes that this day was first celebrated soon after the adoption of the Gregorian Calender which we still use today and that the term referred to someone still adhering to the previous Julian Calender, which it replaced. Another theory from pre-christian cultures tells us that May 1st, of May Day was celebrated as the first day of summer, and signalled the start of the spring planting season. An April Fool was someone who did this prematurely. Still another theory claims that April 1st was counted as the first day of the year in France. When King Charles IX changed it to January 1st, some people stayed with April 1st. Those who did were called "April Fools" and were taunted by their neighbors. And many other theories excist. What was the wrong info in the article that gave it away as a hoax? The relationship with Pier Luigi Torri had ended at the beginning of the 70's, so she was not engaged anymore to him. Marisa Mell was born in 1939 and was 41 years old at the time of publication and not as the article claims 35. It has to be said that sometimes in other articles Marisa Mell did change her age by dropping three years of her real age. She did have a relationship with the actor Gianni Macchia and they did make several fims together but that relationship was also over in 1980. The photo they used is a photo of the beginnen of the 70's and not one of 1980. And finally the name of the future baby does sound strange as "Eurasia" but stranger names have been given to childeren of movie stars! In short the whole article and last entry was one soap bubble. So be aware today!!!