Marisa Berenson - actress, model, maternal granddaughter of the famous fashion designer, Elsa Schiaparelli, was born on February 15, 1947 in New York.
Berenson is part of a generation of highly cultured and well-connected Euro-aristocrats (he speaks five languages), born to Elsa's daughter Gogo Schiaparelli and Robert Berenson, director of Aristotle Onassis's shipping company, who later he became an American diplomat, and inherits the exotic Italian, Swiss, French, Egyptian (after his mother), Lithuanian and Jewish (after his father) origins of his family. As a child she wanted to appear in films, her bedroom always being covered with pictures of Audrey Hepburn, Rita Hayworth and Marlene Dietrich.
The New York Times described her in 2001 as a "Zelig of the zeitgeist... appearing in the right place at the right time". And there is definitely something magical about her life and the people who passed through it. As a child (she is now 75) she was taught to dance by Gene Kelly. Greta Garbo came to her parents' parties; Salvador Dalí – a friend of her grandmother, the designer Elsa Schiaparelli – wanted to paint her. Legendary Vogue editor Diana Vreeland pushed her to become a model – Yves Saint Laurent described her as “the face of the 70s” – and she was photographed by giants such as David Bailey, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. Andy Warhol photographed her wedding.
She discovered meditation in India with George Harrison and Ringo Starr, attended Bianca Jagger's Studio 54 birthday party – the legendary night of the white horse – and attended Truman Capote's famous black and white ball. Luchino Visconti's Death in Venice, Bob Fosse's Cabaret and Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon are the essential roles of his film career.
When she was 16, her father took her to a ball in New York, where Vreeland saw her and decided she needed to start modeling. Vreeland said, "We have to photograph Marisa." That was. That's how it started. Berenson had already been turned down by the influential Eileen Ford's agency, but with Vreeland's support, she became one of the most sought-after faces of the 60s and 70s. Elsa Schiaparelli wasn't too thrilled, as she feared her young niece would be swallowed up nightlife, exuberance and libertinism of New York. Although she was called "The Queen of the Scene", due to her frequent appearances in night clubs, Marisa kept her lucidity and did not fall into a trance of extreme hedonism, always afraid of drugs and always looked for a healthy and balanced way of life.
At a Vogue shoot in India when she was about 18 in the late 60s, she learned about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram, the birthplace of Transcendental Meditation. Two of the Beatles were there when she arrived. "And one of the Beach Boys," Marisa points out. "So I ended up staying there for a while, going through the initiation and becoming a vegetarian. The days passed and we just meditated, we slept in small huts." Did he spend much time with George and Ringo? "When we finished the day, George would say, 'Come into my room' and we'd sit on the floor and listen to him play the guitar." At the time, she says, it didn't seem like a big deal. "We were all on the same quest - there was a lot of peace and love in those days that we were all looking for."
She was married twice. Berenson's first husband was James Randall, a rivet maker; they married in Beverly Hills in 1976 and divorced in 1978. The couple has one daughter, Starlite Melody Randall (born 1977). Her second husband was attorney Aaron Richard Golub, whom she married in 1982 and divorced in 1987. During the divorce proceedings, the judge ruled that "the increased value of Ms. Berenson's acting and modeling career during the marriage was marital property” and therefore subject to consideration in any settlement agreement
In 2011, his sister, Berinthia "Berry" Berenson-Perkins, widow of actor Anthony Perkins, actress, photographer and model dies at the age of 53, in the September 11 attacks, aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which hit the first between the twin towers. She was returning to her home in Los Angeles after a vacation on Cape Cod. Marisa was also on a flight to New York, coming from Paris, when the tragedy occurred.
Secluded in a villa on the outskirts of Marrakesh, - "my paradise," she says - an oasis of bright colors and patterns and lush greenery, beautiful and glamorous, Marisa wears a long, patterned kaftan, her slight figure , but athletic, unfazed by the weight of her heavy jade earrings and matching tangled necklaces.
A woman who religiously preserves femininity, in silks, beads, hairstyle and perfume, things long forgotten by today's woman, for whom "home" clothing has become a concept that only a person who has forgotten herself can approach, in the current spectrum in which casualness and clothing convenience take the place of elegance and sophistication that we shouldn't have given up. In this context, Marisa is thinking of writing a lifestyle book, full of healthy recipes and tips for the interior and gardening.
