Helmut Berger
Luchino Visconti’s partner and muse played King Ludwig II – and became the androgynous “it boy” of European cinema in the 1970s.
Helmut Berger was born Helmut Steinberger in Bad Ischl, Austria, into a family of hoteliers. He trained in the hotel trade but had no interest in it, moved to London at 18 and took acting classes, then studied languages in Perugia and went to Rome.
In 1964 he met the director Luchino Visconti, who became his partner and mentor until Visconti’s death. Visconti gave him his first film role and in 1969 international fame as Martin von Essenbeck in “The Damned”, in which he performs a famous drag scene as Marlene Dietrich. In Visconti’s “Ludwig” (1972) he played the Bavarian King Ludwig II from youth to his final years, winning a David di Donatello award. He also starred in “Dorian Gray” (1970) and “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” (1970).
Berger was openly bisexual. He had relationships with Visconti and with the actress Marisa Berenson and in his memoirs described affairs with many famous men and women. In 1970 he was the first man photographed for the cover of “Vogue”. Photographers such as Helmut Newton and Andy Warhol portrayed him.
Visconti’s death in 1976 plunged him into crisis; alcohol and drugs overshadowed his later career. He appeared in “Dynasty” and in “The Godfather Part III” (1990) and in 1993 played Ludwig again. In 2007 he received a special Teddy Award at the Berlinale. He died in 2023, aged 78.