Conversation Piece

Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo , was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films The Leopard and Death in Venice . One of seven children, Visconti was born in Milan into a noble and wealthy family, one of the... region's richest. His father Giuseppe Visconti di Modrone was the Duke of Grazzano and Count of Lonate Pozzolo. In his early years he was exposed to art, music and theatre, and met the composer Giacomo Puccini, the conductor Arturo Toscanini and the writer Gabriele d'Annunzio. During World War II Visconti joined the Italian Communist Party. Visconti made no secret of his homosexuality. His last partner was the Austrian actor Helmut Berger, who played Martin in Visconti's film The Damned. Berger also appeared in Visconti's Ludwig in 1972 and Conversation Piece in 1974 along with Burt Lancaster. Other lovers included Franco Zeffirelli, who also worked as part of the crew in production design, as assistant director, and other roles in a number of Visconti's films and theatrical productions. A chain smoker, he died in Rome of a stroke at age 69.
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