Helmut Berger  

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"And indeed the popularity among young Japanese girls of late Visconti films, Helmut Berger and the extravagant posturing of David Bowie, does seem to point to a taste for the Teutonic bizarre." --A Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture (1984) by Ian Buruma

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Helmut Berger (1944 – 2023) was an Austrian actor, known for his portrayal of narcissistic and sexually ambiguous characters. He was one of the stars of European cinema in the late 1960s and 1970s, and is regarded as a sex symbol and pop icon of that period.

He was both an emblem of high culture in Visconti's The Damned and of low culture in Salon Kitty by Tinto Brass.

Personal life

Berger was openly bisexual. He was in relationships with his director and mentor Luchino Visconti and actress Marisa Berenson. Berger married Italian writer and model Francesca Guidato on 19 November 1994. After 2010 they lived separately. Berger lived for many years in Rome, but returned to Salzburg in the 2000s to take care of his elderly mother.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, Berger was seen as the "it boy of the European jet set". According to his 1998 autobiography Ich. Die Autobiographie, the actor's affairs included flings with Rudolf Nureyev, Britt Ekland, Ursula Andress, Nathalie Delon, Tab Hunter, Florinda Bolkan, Linda Blair, Marisa Mell, Anita Pallenberg, Marilù Tolo, Jerry Hall, and both Bianca and Mick Jagger. Miguel Bosé writes about his affair with Berger in his autobiography.

From the 1980s, Berger's private life was also in the news for his struggles with alcohol and drugs, sometimes resulting in eccentric and controversial television appearances.

Filmography

(director in parentheses; all films except as noted)




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Helmut Berger" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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