Christian De Sica: The Life, Love, and Legacy of Vittorio De Sica’s Son

Christian De Sica, a word that defines his father Vittorio well.
“A god.”

Really.
“Actually: my god. So much so that even today, before a theater debut, I never say “my god help me”, but I say “dad, help me”.

Does he still talk to her?
“His life and art lessons speak to me. An elegant, crazy man from another era.”

Unfaithful.
“Bigamist, to be precise. I was the son of the lover he lived with, Maria Mercader, his wife Giuditta Rissone lived not far away and he loved them both. Today this would be unacceptable, but it was the twentieth century.”

Did the two women hate each other?
“My mother suffered, I know, but after her death they became friends.”

His extended family. Every now and then a sister would appear, as she recounts in the book “Two or Three Things That Happened to Me”.
«Once a Spanish woman called me and said “Hi, I’m Vittoria De Sica, your hermana”. Dad explained to me that his mother, Maria, recited the poems of García Lorca in a sublime way, and so… Emi, my sister, I met her when we were already grown up and not because dad introduced her to us (not never found the courage), but because one day she called home and said: “I’m Emilia, your father’s daughter and I wanted to meet you”. I loved her all my life.”

She has been with Silvia Verdone, Carlo’s sister, for fifty years.
“Now you will ask me what the secret is, I know. We laugh a lot, we don’t take ourselves seriously, we respect each other. I met her when she was 14.”

It is not enough. Can you make love with the same person for your whole life?
“Yes. I am faithful. And now that I’m seventy years old, don’t ever talk to me about love!’

No, no, I insist: what cements long-lasting unions?
“Sometimes hunger. I was hungry and Silvia was hungry with me. Months where we skipped meals or shared an egg, I remember the years when I shot a film in Paris. Dad died when I was 23 and even if today I’m known as “the one from the cinepanettoni”, therefore a blockbuster, there were periods of our lives in which no one let me work”.

Why “son of art”?
“Yes, for many reasons. I wanted to be an actor at all costs and many said that I should have been content with being an author. My wife supported and encouraged me, for example in doing theatre.”

Is it true that there was a fight with Carlo (Verdone) when he learned that she was courting his sister, who was so young at the time?
“No, there was an argument but no punches. Carlo is one of the most important people in my life today. In addition to the fact that we often worked together. Even though De Laurentiis often separated us on the set, because he said that together we were wasted and that we could enrich two films instead of just one.”

The love of money?
“You might think that with the cinepanettoni I have become a millionaire. The truth is that the producers became it, not me. Of course, Christmas on the Nile grossed 42 million euros, an enormity. But I’ll tell you an anecdote: commenting on another film that had grossed 20 million, De Laurentiis commented that “the previous one had made more”. Today, thank goodness Cortellesi is here, otherwise I don’t see cinemas well. My heart is crying.”

Another great love, his mother Maria.
“I think that if I am a comedian today I owe it to her: she had more of a sense of humor than my father. She and Vittorio were very close, also because dad knew how to fix things.”

Was comedy a choice?
«I was a brilliant actor, who then found his comedian declination. But in that field I became number one. If I had made other choices maybe I would have been number ten? Or a hundred?’

What did your father dream for you?
“Certainly not that I was an actor. He was proud of my art and literature studies, then I told him I wanted to act. He wasn’t happy, but he came to the theater and said to me: “Okay.”

His life seems like a Zavattini story: encounters with unlikely characters, funny and dramatic things.
“I once threw a party for Liza Minnelli in Rome. She drank three bottles of Falanghina and when we finally put her in the taxi we realized that her dog was missing from her house. She had taken it with her and we had to fight to get it back, she said it was hers – hers.”

Before meeting Silvia Verdone you were engaged to Isabella Rossellini.
“But then she met a painter and left me. Then she went to America and married Martin Scorsese. Today, however, we are good friends.”

And are you still friends with Massimo Boldi?
“Yes, just think that when I met him he was a drummer. Cinema came later. We also had a reunion, after the separation of the cinepanettoni”.

Love is also gratitude. Who do you say you are grateful to today, at 72 years old?
«To many, however, I want to mention Peppino De Filippo. In one of the most difficult periods, when I was without a job, he was the only one who helped me.”

Friends again. Unsuspectedly we find Bettino Craxi.
«It all started because Carlo (Verdone, ed.) is afraid of taking a plane. He had gotten married and didn’t know what to do for his honeymoon. Silvia and I were planning to go to Tunisia so he and Gianna Scarpelli, his ex-wife, joined us. In a café in Hammamet I felt a finger tap on my shoulder. I turned and found Craxi. He told us that he was a fan of ours and invited us to his villa. A very kind person, he never asked me for any favors – in fact, to be honest, it was he who proposed a meeting with someone from Rai 2 to get me to work, but I was already working and said no”.

It was also out of friendship that she once got Rainier of Monaco drunk.
«To protect a photographer friend. We were at a party hosted by Ranieri and Grace Kelly. The photographer, with his camera, had taken hot shots in the room with his then partner and then started taking photos of Carolina. Ranieri, with lightning-fast cunning, took the camera and put it in his pocket. I had to get her back somehow and only one came to mind: get him drunk.”

Brando and Maria Rosa.
“Our two children, our fortune. I’m not saying this because it’s my blood, but they are intelligent, cultured and respectful.”

A dream?
“Two. Two films that are there, ready to be shot but no one wants to make them. They are two serious films, which I wrote. I pay the price of cinematographers and no one thinks I have the trump card of a dramatic actor. Maybe they give it to a young man who hasn’t done anything, but not to me. Yet I have made dramatic films, like Lemons in Winter by Caterina Carone. But that’s okay, because dad used to repeat: “Try to always laugh. Even at funerals. Enjoy every moment, because then he will fly away”».

The sentimental interview

2023-12-27 20:41:35


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