Austrian-born actor Helmut Berger, known for his roles with Visconti, died on Thursday May 18, 2023. He was 78 years old.
His name is forever associated with that of Luchino Visconti, for whom he had played in Ludwig – The Twilight of the Gods, The Damned and Violence and Passion. Helmut Berger died on Thursday May 18, 2023. He was 78 years old.
The meeting with Visconti
Son of owners of a hotel chain, the young Helmut refuses to take over the family business and turns away from this professional heritage. He left for London where he did odd jobs and became a waiter to pay for his drama studies. After having distinguished himself in a few secondary roles in France and Italy, his career began in 1964. He landed a role in Roger Vadim’s La Ronde then was spotted among a mass of extras by Luchino Visconti himself on the set of his film, Sandra. According to other sources, Berger met Visconti when he was a waiter in a hotel at a winter sports resort in Austria.
“Embody Perseverance”
Still, this meeting will change the future of Helmut Berger. Renowned for his beauty, he quickly became Luchino Visconti’s lover and this relationship marked the beginning of a great career. After a small role in a film with sketches, Visconti offers him prospects of another scale. He fashions him in his image and detects in him a “demonic, crazy and sexually perverted” side, qualities which he considers perfect to “incarnate perversion”.
It was then that Berger chained the great films, always under the direction of Visconti: disguised as Marlene Dietrich in The Damned in 1969, homosexual and “alienated” in Ludwig – The Twilight of the Gods in 1972, or even a young gigolo in Violence and Passion in 1974, Berger took the lead and gained notoriety. At the same time, he toured with other renowned directors such as Vittorio De Sica, in Le Jardin des Finzi Contini in 1970.
After Visconti
After Visconti’s death in 1976, Helmut Berger went through a difficult period: devastated by the loss of the one he considered his “husband”, as he later confided in his autobiography, the actor experienced addiction problems to drugs and alcohol. Moreover, very marked by the ambiguous roles he used to play, his film career stagnated and he found himself confined to playing characters who were sexually disturbed, or even drugged, slipping into the skin of Dorian Gray, of gigolos of all kinds (A Romantic Englishwoman by Joseph Losey in 1975, Dynasty in 1980, etc.) or even by resuming, in Ludwig 1881 (1993), the role of Ludwig II of Bavaria who had blown him up in Ludwig – The Twilight of the Gods in 1972.
A role at Coppola
Cinematographic personality borrowed from decadence, famous interpreter of sulphurous characters, Berger ended up being the victim of his image as a “perverse” actor, and was forced to shine in erotic films or in caricatures of what he interpreted. already under the direction of Luchino Visconti. From the 1980s, Berger became more discreet in the cinema. He appeared briefly in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, Part 3 in 1990, but he is now mostly limited to small roles in television series. Recently, he starred in two German films by director Peter Kern, namely Blutsfreundschaft in 2009 and Mörderschwestern in 2011.
Rewarded in 2007 by a Teddy Award for his whole career, he pays in his autobiography a final tribute to his lover, since he attributes the credit of his qualities as an actor to the talents of direction of Luchino Visconti.
Visconti’s The Damned trailer: