"I've lived three lives. And in four languages! I don't regret anything!" he said, mixing English and French, his agent recalled Thursday.

The Austrian, whose last screen appearance was on Bonello's "Saint Lawrence" in 2014, died "peacefully but suddenly in his hometown of Salzburg" in Austria, "shortly before his 79th birthday".

Before leading "la dolce vita all his life", Helmut Berger was one of Visconti's favorite actors, who noticed him for his incandescent beauty and entrusted him with roles of tormented aristocrats, which will stick to his skin.

In "The Damned" (1969), about the rise of Nazism, Helmut Berger disguises himself as Marlene Dietrich, in "Ludwig, the Twilight of the Gods" (1972), he is a dark Prince Louis of Bavaria with repressed homosexuality, alongside Romy Schneider replaying the character of Sissi, then in "Violence and Passion" (1974) a young gigolo.

The meeting between the maestro and the Austrian Apollo took place in the mid-60s on the set of "Sandra", a film by Visconti with Claudia Cardinale.

Helmut Berger, then Helmut Steinberger, born May 29, 1944 in Bad Ischl (western Austria), is a waiter and model, attending drama classes. Finding himself by chance on the set in Italy, he caught the eyes of Visconti who quickly made him one of his favorite actors.

Like a certain Alain Delon with whom he maintains a tenacious enmity.

Addictions

"I didn't like how he behaved with Luchino, Nathalie (Delon) and Romy (Schneider). Here, everyone forgave everything to the god of French beauty. But I know others, beauties: the David in Florence, he is not bad either, "joked Helmut Berger during an interview with the French daily Libération in 2015.

Among his other roles, Helmut Berger also turned under the direction of Vittorio de Sica in "The Garden of the Finzi Contini" (1970), on the rise of anti-Semitism in Italy, in an adaptation of "Dorian Gray" by Massimo Dallamano, in "A Romantic Englishwoman" by Joseph Losey...

But after Visconti's death in 1976, he fell into alcohol and drugs.

Apart from an appearance in the 3rd part of "The Godfather" in 1990, he now has few major roles and occupies the people pages for his addiction problems, his judicial convictions and the story of his crazy evenings in Rome, where he lives.

In 2007, he was awarded a Teddy (LGBT Award) for his entire career at the Berlinale.

"The favorite of all the parties of the international jet-set lived to the end happy, satisfied and in a good state of mind in Salzburg," said Thursday his agent Helmut Werner in a statement.

© 2023 AFP