Austrian actor Helmut Berger, a film icon in the 1960s and 70s, has died at the age of 78. According to a statement on the website of his management company Helmet Werner Management, Berger died ‘peacefully but unexpectedly’ on Thursday in Salzburg, where he has lived since the early 2000s.
Berger was known for his charismatic portrayal of androgynous characters, his open bisexuality and his collaborations with canonical directors such as Luchino Visconti and Vittorio De Sica. Born in Bad Ischl, Austria, Berger set his foot in cinema as a film extra in Rome before being discovered by Visconti, making his first appearance in The Witches (1967) as a hotel page, and later in The Damned (1969), where he dressed as Hollywood actress Marlene Dietrich. In the 1970s, he performed in De Sica’s Oscar-winning The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970) and Ludwig (1972), the latter of which earned him a David di Donatello, the Italian equivalent of the Oscars.
Later in his life, he continued to appear in works such as Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part III (1990) and Madonna’s music video of ‘Erotica’ (1992).
