“He had crazy charm .” It is in these terms that Catherine Deneuve sums up her great love Marcello Mastroianni, on the set of Dailyin May 2024. About him, she is full of praise: “He is a brilliant, shy and very funny man who has a great sense of derision and a lot of humor”she still remembers. The actress fell in love with the character during a dinner, organized in the fall of 1970, by director Roman Polanski. Despite the nineteen years that separate them, the flow immediately passes between these two actors. Later, in the pages of Evening Illustrated, Catherine Deneuve will say of this meal that it was “pleasant, even joyful”.
When he met Catherine Deneuve, Marcello Mastroianni was a married man
The following summer, Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni met again, this time within the framework of their profession. In 1971, on the set of Liza by Marco Ferreri, they get closer and it doesn’t take long to start an affair. “It was their common desire not to leave each other that made them the star couple of the film.”, reports Paris Match that same year. The alchemy present between these two souls escapes no one. The actress then decides to slip the name of her suitor into the ear of Nadine Trintignant, who is working on her next film It only happens to othersinspired by the death of his nine-month-old daughter. To portray this couple on screen, whose strength of love will prevail over the drama, the two actors keep their real first names and give their all. So much so that at the end of filming, Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni never left each other. They moved together in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. “The film finished, Marcello remained in my life”, confides the actress in The Illustrated Evening.
But if Catherine Deneuve is in the process of divorcing photographer David Bailey, the only man who put the ring on her finger, Marcello Mastroianni has another woman in his heart. At the time, the Italian actor was married to Italian actress Flora Carabella, with whom he had a daughter named Barbara. Despite the ambiguity of the situation, Marcello Mastroianni – who already lives separated from his wife – refuses to divorce. For the actor, born in Italy in the 1920s in Fontana Libri in Lazio and very influenced by Italian Catholic culture, Flora Carabella holds a special place. In addition to having become his wife before God twenty years earlier, he maintains a tender complicity and a special attachment for her, even if he does not love her as on the first day. For her part, the mother of her daughter has always excused her escapades. When he fell into the arms of his play partners, she excused him. She even consoled him for having been abandoned by a mistress. Failing to accept it, Flora Carabella will therefore tolerate this new threesome, with Catherine Deneuve.
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A love story unlike any other
The relationship between Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni will take another turn when the actress becomes pregnant. On May 28, 1972, Françoise Dorléac’s sister gave birth to a daughter, whom she chose to call Chiara, in a nod to her Italian roots. Fulfilled by her motherhood, the actress is on the other hand tired of being “the other”. Not because she despairs of one day marrying her daughter’s father, but rather because this unofficial love no longer suits her. As Alexandre Fache recalls in his book Catherine Deneuve, a biography (Ed. Presses de la Cité), Chiara Mastroianni’s mother is “for successful attachments”those who leave the possibility “to leave in complete freedom if you are not happy”. B
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Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni, from lovers to friends
Two years after the birth of their child, seeing that complicity had taken over love, Catherine Deneuve decided to break up. “Our life together ended in failure and… I don’t like failures. Not having the same education, the same roots, the same language, yes, so many pitfalls…”, observes the actress. Despite their separation, the two actors remain on good terms. They devote themselves together to the education of their daughter Chiara. When the latter told them of her desire to become an actress herself, her mother “panic”, while his father welcomes the news with open arms. “When I told him, he threw a party. It was like we were running a family restaurant, and I said I was taking over the business.”, story Chiara Mastroianni, au Guardian in 2012. Although separated, and not always in agreement, Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni remained linked until the death of the Italian actor. “We remained the best friends in the world”, he assured, in the columns of Galain 1995. A nice way to summarize their relationship.
