Before she was 25, Barbara Bouchet had already done about twenty movies in Hollywood, “the ones where you wear a bikini or you’re a beautiful girl,” she minimizes, but the beautiful girl was close to stars like Marlon Brando and certainly had a role in James Bond 007’s Casino Royale and Star Trek as well. Previously, a Czechoslovak born under the bombs, she had lived as a refugee and then picked cotton on California plantations. Since 1969 she has lived in Rome and in Italy she was the sexy movie star of the 70’s and 80’s, an icon for many even for Quentin Tarantino who had a long distance crush as a boy. Today, Barbara, aged 79 on August 15 (not 80 as the bios say) is still gorgeous and has two grandchildren and two sons, Alessandro Borghese, the chef, and Massimiliano.
How and when do you decide to settle in Italy?
«When I was shooting “Colpo rovente” in 1979, offers were pouring in and I asked myself: Who is going back to America? Here I was one of the few, there were three thousand actresses for a role, all like me.”
That is, spectacularly beautiful. When did you realize it was like this?
“My father was a photographer. In San Francisco she filmed communions and weddings and used me for other odd jobs as a model. Then at 14 I won the Miss China Beach swimsuit contest, a lady took me there who stopped me in front of her gym and from then on she let me enter contests, I won them all: Miss Photogenic, Miss Smile… And so somewhere the idea that I was beautiful came to my mind. When I was 15 I was visiting a friend in Los Angeles and I never came home: the air wasn’t the best, we were five children, money was tight and my parents couldn’t stand each other anymore, they were always fighting. I enrolled in Hollywood Professional School for aspiring actresses and sold fried chicken, shoes, whatever. Thus began the small roles, the first in Make Me A Place Darling with Doris Day and James Scarner.
Nowadays it is hard to imagine that a 15-year-old could manage on her own.
“I didn’t realize it until my son was 15 and I thought: my goodness, I was a kid, if Alessandro ran away and went to New York I would be hysterical.” But I had experienced a lot more today than a fifteen-year-old: I was born when my father was on the front lines, my mother and my grandparents were expelled by the Russians and we visited my aunt in Germany because my mother was German. Then dad got a job in Munich and we finally had a decent house. Before, we five children all slept together. But Mama was obsessed with America.’
Have you dreamed of happiness abroad?
“Dad loved her so much that he agreed to go even though we had just settled in.” We arrive in the hottest valley in California in the summer, I was 12 years old. We pick cotton for two years to fund the trip. Later, in San Francisco, my father was struggling to support his family and almost hated my mother for forcing him to emigrate. When he photographed weddings, he hid the food in his coat and brought it there.”
What dangers did she run alone in Hollywood?
“Only a few. Some admirer. Do you know the famous MeToo? But just say no and it’s no. Then I started quite well in Hollywood, I did 007, What a Way With Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, Robert Micthum, Bedtime Story with Marlon Brando and David Niven, Kelinda in Star Trek, Sweet Charity… I had career opportunities, but there was a great gentleman courting me. On the first date she shows up with a pair of sapphires and I: I would never wear something like that. And I refuse. Bring rubies with you the second time. And I’ll say it again: I don’t like this stuff. He wanted to buy me, but he couldn’t. Until he got mad and said it would ruin my career. Only the friend who introduced him to me hadn’t told me that he was the Mafia’s lawyer. I quickly packed my suitcase and fled to New York. There was no cinema there, only fashion, but passing Italians were looking for an American for a film: I just asked when we were leaving, I would have gone too if it had been Mickey Mouse.”
It exploded in Italy.
“Just think, I made eleven films in 1972.”
Weren’t you embarrassed by the sexy scenes?
‘Growing up in a family where we kids were all naked in the same room, I don’t have that sense of modesty. And then it was roles, it was like saying don’t you mind being a killer? However, I rejected films that I found vulgar or pathological: The Key by Tinto Brass, made by Stefania Sandrelli, and Corinne Clery’s The Story of Gooses.
– Barbara Bouchet in a scene from Franco Prosperi’s film “Conjugal Duty”
Other not decisive?
“My biggest role was in Otto Preminger’s First Victory, Kirk Douglas’ Wife in 1965.” But Preminger took me into his stable and then told me there would be no roles for me for two years, and also refused to loan me to producer Charles K. Feldman. I left, but I had to pay the fine and was unemployed. Fate wants it to happen at the Cannes Film Festival. An Italian producer invites me to talk about working in his villa. I knew he had a partner, so I don’t sense any danger and leave. But the lady wasn’t there. He asks me: How is the body? And I: Fine, thanks. He expected me to open my blouse. Then he says: The director will decide. He dismisses me and sends me to London to Michelangelo Antonioni.”
Didn’t Antonioni try it too?
“I ask him what role it is, he looks at me with the tic he used to have, always shaking his head, and says: I’m very tired now. Goodbye and thank you. But at the airport I was approached by Feldman, the producer, which Preminger had denied me. Well, I called him and made Moneypenny, 007’s secretary, with Niven, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen. It took us a year and a half to shoot it.”
What do you remember from this set?
“The money thrown out the window.” Scenes were made, rewritten, remade. And Niven: the actor I’ve worked with best, a gentleman, funny as hell. I also became friends with his wife. I was fine. We were shooting in London, all I needed was the sun. But the day it dawned I was lying in my bathing suit in Hyde Park and I was arrested.’
Who courted their setmates?
“No nobody. William Shatner, Captain Kirk from Star Trek, but when I found him without a toupee in front of the trailer, I didn’t recognize him. I went there for dinner, nothing special.’
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In newspapers of the late 60’s she became engaged to Omar Sharif.
“I forgot, you’re right! I live with him in Paris and he says: don’t forget that, you have to take care of the house, I don’t want paintings, objects, anything lying around. And I: What is that? A hospital? I didn’t last long because he was always playing at the casino and I was at home. It was in Italy that my career started, so I left a message and left.”
Has she left other men so clean?
“Steve McQueen. I lived with him in Malibu, every morning friends would come by motorcycles to our place for breakfast and I would be in the kitchen making eggs, bacon and potatoes. I said to myself: This is not my life.”
Even with Steve McQueen a ticket and off you go?
“Secure. I like acting, not cooking.”
Seduced and abandoned others?
‘Well… The Tarzan from the TV series, Ron Ely. I meet him on the set in Mexico, almost two meters tall, half-naked, a physique as beautiful as the sun. As long as we were in Acapulco I liked him, then I saw him dressed in Los Angeles and the magic wore off.”
The most beautiful Italian you’ve ever worked with?
Marcello Mastroianni. The affair with Catherine Deneuve had just ended, it was sad. In the morning he came to the set of Per le antica stairway by Mauro Bolognini, turned on the record player and listened to Bella senza’anima. Every morning.’
The sweetest?
“Ugo Tognazzi. On the set of Anatra all’arancia with Monica Vitti, she used me to tease her, she asked me to change the jokes to surprise her.”
Why does he eventually leave the cinema?
«I had married, my husband Gigi Borghese and I had been together for 36 years, he had conquered me with sympathy. Alessandro was born in 1976 and I stopped before I was 40 because I didn’t want others to send me away. I thought: I’ll be back in ten years. I was a mother and imported Jane Fonda aerobics to Italy with classes and VHS. It then took twenty years to return to the cinema. But I came back with Martin Scorsese in Gangs of New York. He also celebrated Christmas at my house with his wife and my family.”
He said he doesn’t know how to cook, but where does Alessandro get his passion for cooking?
“From my father.” I don’t even like to eat: I’ve always had a poor appetite. It is not pleasant for my son: I always leave half a plate».
Did you fall in love again after the divorce?
“I thought there would be a line at the door but no one was there. Admirers see me as a trophy and I don’t like being a trophy. They don’t understand that Barbara is behind Bouchet.”
What else does he wish for in the future?
‘A TV series like Grace and Frankie with Corinne Clery: We’re friends, we tease each other a lot. We would be a perfect match. Let’s just put it this way: I expect the producers to understand that women my age also want to be in film and television.
About ten years ago, Quentin Tarantino wanted to meet her at the Venice Film Festival.
“He asked the director: I’m leaving, he sees me and yells: Yes. We spend two days together, then he gives me an appointment and doesn’t show up. I think: Who does he think he is? Some time later the director Francesco Vezzoli calls me and says he has to make a short film about Caligula and that Quentin will only play Caligula if I become his wife. I go to Los Angeles, try on makeup and costumes, and the day before the shoot, Quentin calls him and says he’s not coming because he’s too fat. In short, a rudeness. But no matter: Thanks to him, I won a lot of fans all over the world at a certain age.”