Dalila Di Lazzaro She has been an icon of Italian cinema and catwalks since the Seventies. Today, at 71, she has not lost her charm fueled by a life full of extraordinary experiences. Like that of a legendary dinner at the end of which Robert De Niro gave her an unsolicited kiss, or her first audition with Andy Warhol. But she too was filled with pain, the immense one for the death of her son Christian when she was only 22 years old.
Dinner with De Niro
The actress and model in an interview with Corriere della Sera retraced those incredible years, starting from the dinner with De Niro. «I was living in Rome and one afternoon Sergio Leone called, I knew him well, we often went on trips with him and his wife. I was very engaged to a man from Padua but Sergio begins like this: ‘You have no plans this evening, you are a guest with my friends’. I reply: ‘But I can’t!…’. She insists. He gives me the address of a tavern in Trastevere, Checco, the carter… ». The dinner turned out to be a meeting with stars such as Robert De Niro, Muhammad Alì and Gabriel García Márquez. On Robert De Niro, Dalila reveals: «Never seen before. But Leone said: ‘My daughter, but you don’t know what Robert did for you to be here tonight. He told me that if you hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have made the film with me. You can’t understand, he called me from New York: “So is Dalila here?”. The evening ended with the actor following Dalila throughout Trastevere, despite her having openly declared her disinterest: «We arrive at Piazza Navona. I go to the Raphael hotel, exasperated I go in and ask for a taxi. When the car arrives, Robert gives me a kiss, drops me, hugs me. I wriggle free. I tell the taxi driver… go away: I’m running away, liberation!
Son
But not all memoirs bring with them the light of Hollywood stars. For Dalila Di Lazzaro, some of her stories are overshadowed by deep personal pain, such as the tragic death of her son Christian in 1992: «Christian was born in 1969, today I would be a grandmother. Who knows. He was hit by a car on the evening of May 19, 1992 while he was returning home on his scooter on Cassia. He was 22, I was 37. I had him when I was fifteen. We were very close, never a problem with him.” Of that tragic night, a memory haunts her: «I came back at three, then I heard the phone… chirp, chirp and they hung up. I wasn’t worried but when I woke up in the morning I found a message on my answering machine. It was terrible. He was from the hospital: “Unfortunately, his son is here. He’s in the mortuary, he should come and get his things.” But how do you leave a message like that? In the morgue, before caressing him for the last time I blindfolded myself. I wanted to remember him, but while I was alive.”
The cinema
Among the memories related to cinema, that of the first audition with Andy Warhol: «One morning the phone rings. “Ready? Here she is Carlo Ponti’s Champion, we are waiting for her for an audition with Andy Warhol”. I thought it was a joke.” On the producer and husband of Sophia Loren she denies the rumors that she was in love with her:
“For me he was like a father, he gave me without expecting anything, a pygmalion.”
The flirts
Among the flirtations of her life, the one with the tennis player Yannick Noah and Gianni Agnelli. On the Avvocato, he tells an anecdote: «One evening I was with him, in Rome. Henry Kissinger was there, I was bored. I’m about to leave and he gives me a cigarette case. I gave it back to him, “What do I do with it”… Let’s go on like this for a while. I’m about to leave without having taken it when Brunetto, his butler, joins me and tells me: “If the Lawyer gives you a gift, accept it.” Then I realized that the box was from Bulgari, I paid a down payment on a house.”
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