Helmut Berger, the Austrian actor once dubbed “the most beautiful man in the world,” has died at the age of 78. In the mid-1960s, he caught the eye of the aristocratic Italian director Luchino Visconti, who became his companion and mentor, showcasing him in three films, most prominently The Damned, in 1969. “Except for Helmut Berger, there are no interesting women today,” said Billy Wilder after viewing the actor’s impression of Marlene Dietrich in the movie. A sine qua non of the jet set, he attracted the beauties of the age, male and female, irresistibly into his orbit. After Visconti’s death, in 1976, his fall was precipitous. Prodigious drinking and drug use robbed him of his looks, if not his fire, resulting in hair-raising “under the influence” appearances on European talk shows and culminating in a harrowing lion-in-winter documentary, Helmut Berger, Actor, in 2015. Mercurial to the end, Berger had no time for nostalgia—or heartache. “I have lived three lives,” he said. “And in four languages! Je ne regrette rien.”
