Marcello Mastroianni would seem to be the male chauvinist porco classico. But a couple of years after leaving his wife and daughter in Rome for a relationship with Catherine Deneuve and their illegitimate daughter in Paris, Mastroianni was jolted by an enforced consciousness-raising. He himself was out of work for eight months. "Catherine was making a film in Madrid. So I went there to be with her," he reports. "For the first time in my life," moped Mastroianni, "I was in the woman's position, waiting. I went to the zoo alone three times. That will give you some idea. Now I understand why women want to make the revolution."
Dustin to Dust
His biggest problem these days, confesses director Franco Zeffirelli, is "trying to find my Christ." The crisis is not spiritual but casting. Italy's RAI and Britain's ATV are themselves casting $12 million of bread on the waters for a six-part Zeffirelli TV spectacular entitled The Life of Jesus. Franco's preliminary inclination, he says, is Dustin Hoffman (who just finished the biofilm of Lenny Bruce). "But how," Zeffirelli rhetorically implores the heavens, "do you convince an audience he is Christ?" Maybe Jesus can't be played by a superstar.
Jackie No
Anne Giscard d'Estaing, 41-year-old wife of France's new president, is the Jackie No of First Ladies. Preferring homey circumstances to pomp, she has refused to move kip and kin into the Elysée Palace, France's White House since 1873, from their Paris mansion. Aside from her conviction that it is "very depressing for a man to live where he works," Mme. Giscard declared (in an interview with Maria Pia di Savoia, daughter of Italy's ex-king Umberto): "They call it a palace. To me it seems more like a prison." Thus, while Anne and their four kids have dug in at home, Giscard spends some nights imprisoned in the palace all alone by the téléphone.
Purple Lion
Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf is passé. The hot new number to make kids sit through a classical concert is Freddie the Football. It was composed by Boston Pops arranger Richard Hayman and first narrated by bad-acting ballplayer-broadcaster Alex Karras. But the definitive rendition seems to be by the Minnesota Orchestra and Carl Eller, the Vikings' 6'6" "Purple People Eater" and a student with the Tyrone Guthrie Theater Company who has shot several movies. "I think my version is more animated," says the not-so-defensive end, and the Minneapolis Trib reviewer agreed, although noting, "No critic in his right mind could say anything but that Carl Eller was simply smashing." Even the 97-member orchestra was shouting bravo at the end of Eller's emoting, which included a full range from trembling falsetto to basso profundo. Exclaimed awed associate conductor Henry Charles Smith: "He sounds like Jerome Hines at the Metropolitan Opera."
Out of Uniform
It wasn't Tiffany's, but what about breakfast in bed with ex-Princess Lee Radziwill? Truman Capote and his old buddy Bouvier larked off on a four-day visit to New Orleans, where he was born and she had never been. They lodged in adjoining rooms separated by a foyer in the Marie Antoinette hotel and spent most of their time shopping and eating, or trying to eat. Unrecognized, they were bounced for being improperly dressed at the French Quarter's renowned Antoine's. They retreated to their hotel, changed, returned and were seated—in a dark obscure corner. After being ignored for 15 minutes they returned to the Marie Antoinette. Other stopovers included the Elmwood Plantation, a restaurant co-owned by the brother of Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, as well as the cliché establishment for breakfast, Brennan's (where he ordered poached eggs and grits, she eggs benedict). Her last morning in town before emplaning back to New York alone they wanted to celebrate with a drink. She abstained, but he had a screwdriver, served personally by the proprietor of the Marie Antoinette. It was in Lee's chamber, and Truman, it was reported, was in the bed in the buff.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
