Life
Born November 2nd 1906 into an ancient aristocratic family in Milan, as one of seven offspring of the Grand Duke of Modrone and his wife Carla (nee Erba, heiress to Erba Pharmaceuticals,) was a son, baptized as Count don Luchino Visconti di Modrone, In his early years he was exposed to art, music and theatre, and met the composer Giacomo Puccini, the conductor Arturo Toscanini and the writer Gabriele d'Annunzio.
During World War II Visconti joined the Italian Communist Party.
Visconti made no secret of his homosexuality. His last partner was the Austrian actor Helmut Berger, who played Martin in Visconti's film The Damned. Berger also appeared in Visconti's Ludwig in 1972 and Conversation Piece in 1974 along with Burt Lancaster. Other lovers included Franco Zeffirelli, who also worked as part of the crew in production design, as assistant director, and other roles in a number of Visconti's films and theatrical productions.
He died in Rome of a stroke at age 69. There is a museum dedicated to the director's work in Ischia.
Read more about this topic: Luchino Visconti
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Make me thy Loome: thy Grace the warfe therein,
My duties Woofe, and let thy word winde Quills.
The shuttle shoot. Cut off the ends my sins.
Thy Ordinances make my fulling mills,
My Life thy Web: and cloath me all my dayes
With this Gold-web of Glory to thy praise.”
—Edward Taylor (1645–1729)
“Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 12:15.
“Whatever, in fact, is modern in our life we owe to the Greeks. Whatever is an anachronism is due to mediaevalism.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)