Roberto Rossellini, Anna Magnani’s broken heart and love with Ingrid Bergman: the story of a great triangle

It is 1948. Ingrid Bergman, a Swedish actress, married and living in Hollywood, sees a film by the Italian director Roberto Rossellini and is enchanted by it. And, as many actresses do, even today, she offers herself for a future project together. She writes a letter: «Mr. Rossellini, I am a Swedish girl who has lived in America for ten years, who speaks good English, a little French and can only say “I love you” in Italian. I saw your movie PaisaI’m thrilled about it and would be honored to have a small part in your next film.”

Ingrid’s letter is a masterpiece, precisely in the choice of (pretend?) modest words: “I’m a girl”, “I would be honored”, as if to erase the image of what Ingrid actually already was, that is, a great and very successful actress, a diva who had already won an Oscar. The ending, then, with that “I love you” that seems strategic, is the touch of genius.

“That letter has been mythologized,” said Isabella Rossellini, who is the product of its consequences. “My mother proposed herself as an actress, that’s all. She did it other times, for example, in 1976 with the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman.”

Yes, but Roberto Rossellini was Italian, he was a womanizer, he was charming like few others and he had already caused so many emotional messes that, in comparison, Mozart’s Don Giovanni was an amateur. When Ingrid’s letter arrived, the director was still legally married to the costume designer Marcella De Marchis (in Italy there was no divorce) mother of two of his children, but he was with the actress Anna Magnani, a national monument, also an integral part of the success of his cinema.

Following the letter, Roberto and Ingrid decided to meet in Paris. One day, in Rome, he anxiously awaited the telegram in which she would communicate the place and time of the appointment. He told the doorman that, if it arrived, he should not put it in the mailbox but should deliver it to him personally, specifying: “when you see me alone”. The telegram arrived, the doorman went up to the Rossellini-Magnani house and said: “Doctor, here it is, I didn’t put it in the mailbox, I’ll give it to you as soon as he’s alone”.

“What are you saying!” Rossellini exclaims, turning towards Anna who was mixing the pasta. A moment later, without even going into detail, but with that natural speed, precisely, of jealousy, Anna Magnani poured a bowl of spaghetti with sauce on her companion’s head..Jealousy always comes first. It wins every race, setting every record for the speed of intuition. Even in a world without the instant ticks of WhatsApp.

The spaghetti spiller was not wrong. Shortly after, Rossellini left her in the worst possible way: pretending nothing had happened, announcing that he would go down to walk the dogs, the dachshund Lilina and the poodle Pippo, never to return.

In the meantime the film with Bergman had materialized: it is Stromboliinitially written for Magnani, who was doubly wounded. It was filmed in the summer of ’49. A short distance away, Anna shot a film entitled Volcano directed by German director William Dieterle. Paparazzi surround the two sets in the Aeolian Islands: that summer, no one else is talking about it. Bergman is seen as a cheating sinner: her husband asked for and obtained a divorce and custody of their daughter. Magnani is the one betrayed by everyone, the Jennifer Aniston of the moment who fights in vain with Ingrid-Angelina Jolie. Anna is in pieces and does nothing to hide it.

The following winter, we are at February 2, 1950, the same day of the premiere of StromboliRobertino is born, son of Ingrid and Roberto, followed by the twins Isabella and Isotta two years later. Stromboli attracts the curious and has a fair amount of success (even if in the puritanical United States, Ingrid is punished for her Italian escapade also at the box office) but Volcano is even ignored. In 1955 Magnani gets her revenge: she wins an Oscar for The rose tattoo. A year later, Ingrid catches up with her again, with another Oscar for Anastasia: it’s his great comeback in Hollywood, all is forgiven.

But, in the meantime, the idyll with Rossellini has entered into crisis. He does not want Ingrid to work under the direction of others and is tired of being, given her international popularity, the “Mr. Bergman”. He leaves for India to shoot a documentary: a new companion, Sonali Das Gupta, will return. He does not marry her, he is still married to Marcella. He had, yes, celebrated the wedding with Ingrid in Mexico (at the time it was customary because in Italy, in fact, divorce did not exist) but when the time came to separate from Bergman, they discovered that the marriage was not even valid. In short, Roberto has never stopped being married to Marcella.

However, even with Sonali, love ends. There was, for Rossellini, one last companion: the screenwriter Silvia d’Amico, much younger than him: he had met her at Anna Magnani’s bedside. She was the daughter of one of the actress’s best friends. Anna died on September 26, 1973, the day of Roberto and Marcella’s wedding anniversary. At the funeral, Roberto introduced Silvia to Marcella, almost as if asking for her approval. Shortly after, they become neighbors: his first wife and his last girlfriend.

One day, four years later, Rossellini felt ill, he was having a heart attack. He called Marcella for help and died in her arms. Among the first to call her was Ingrid Bergman: “This was the most beautiful death he could have wished for. It was right this way. With you.” In 1996, Marcella De Marchis published a book entitled A successful marriage.