Marina Pierro (born 9 October 1956, or 1960) is an Italian actress, model, writer, and film director, who is best known for her artistic relationship with Polish filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk (1923–2006). Pierro and Borowczyk's collaboration lasted approximately ten years and comprised five completed films and one foray into episodic television.
Pierro has been described as an "erotic icon of auteur cinema""La strana fascinazione di un corpo surrealista" by Cecilia Ermini. Il Manifesto, 4 May 2014 and she has referred to herself as Walerian Borowczyk's muse.
Early life Marina Pierro was born in Boscotrecase in the Campanese region of Italy. Various sources give 1956 and 1960 as the year of her birth.According to her page in the Internet Movie Database, Marina Pierro was born on 9 October 1956. However, numerous published sources state or imply Pierro was born in 1960. The September 1988 issue of Italy's King magazine features an article on Pierro ("L'amorale della favola" by Monica Carovani) which states the actress is 28 years old, making 1960 her year of birth. The 4 May 2014 issue of Italy's Il Manifesto newspaper includes an interview with Pierro ("La strana fascinazione di un corpo surrealista" by Cecilia Ermini) with a brief biographical section stating Pierro was born in 1960. In the 2015 book Boro, L'Île d'Amour: The Films of Walerian Borowczyk, Kuba Mikurda's essay "Boro: Escape Artist" states that during the casting process for Behind Convent Walls (1978), Walerian Borowczyk met "a 17-year-old Marina Pierro," which would corroborate 1960 as Pierro's year of birth.
Pierro spent her childhood and adolescence in Turin where her family had moved a few years after Pierro's birth. At an early age, Pierro showed talent in drawing and painting, which led her to artistic studies. Pierro followed photography and theatre courses; studied French; had interests in astrology, esotericism, and psychoanalysis; and maintained a passion for cinema and acting. While studying drawing and painting at Turin's Accademia Albertina, Pierro performed in theatre."Borowczyk: Cineaste Onirique" (ed. Michael Atkinson, La Vue, 1981), p.32
Career Debut and first films Pierro moved to Rome and began a career in modelling, doing fashion spreads for magazines such as Harper's Bazaar and Vogue Italia, whilst looking for film work. Pierro's film career began with minor roles in several Italian films in 1976, most notably Luchino Visconti's final film, L'innocente (The Innocent). Pierro got the part after meeting Visconti's assistant, Albino Cocco, whilst walking through Cinecittà studios in Rome: "Visconti's assistant, a friend, introduced me to his boss who was looking for a young girl to play a lady companion, a secondary role, but of great importance to me. On a professional and private level, Visconti was unrivalled in all fields.""Discovered by Visconti, she shoots Borowczyk's film" by Maurice Fabre. France-Soir, 1987.
Pierro subsequently appeared on the cover of the 9 December 1975 issue of Cinema d'oggi (Cinema Today), introduced as "The latest cinematographic discovery by Luchino Visconti."Cinema d'oggi, Vol. 9, no. 45, 9 December 1975. After appearing in The Innocent, Pierro gave an interview in which she stated,
Pierro mentioned she was going to appear alongside James Mason and Luciana Paluzzi in a film by Allen Reisner titled Greenhouse Flower, but this project never eventuated. She played a maid in the 1976 film I prosseneti (The Panderers), written and directed by Brunello Rondi. Pierro played an assistant physiotherapist in Alfredo Rizzo's comedy Sorbole... che romagnola (1976) and a newlywed in the 1976 Italian/Spanish sex comedy Taxi Love, servizio per signora (a.k.a. Taxista de senoras), directed by Sergio Bergonzelli on location in Pescara. Pierro appeared in Dario Argento's supernatural horror film Suspiria (1977) as an uncredited extra before her first prominent role, as the self-styled stigmatic nun Sister Veronica in Walerian Borowczyk's 1977 film Interno di un Convento (Behind Convent Walls), based upon Stendhal's Promenades dans Rome (1829). Of Borowczyk casting her in the film, Pierro recalled,
Borowczyk told Pierro that, as a fan of Italian Renaissance painters, he found in her "the classic Italian figure." Pierro was greatly affected by the experience of meeting Borowczyk and appearing in Behind Convent Walls:
Meeting Pierro had a significant effect on Borowczyk's career as well. Borowczyk cast Pierro in almost all of his subsequent feature films, and it has been noted that Pierro effectively supplanted Borowczyk's wife Ligia Branice, who had appeared in her husband's Goto, Island of Love (1968) and Blanche (1971) as well as Behind Convent Walls. David Thomson wrote,
Similarly, Kuba Mikurda (director of the 2018 documentary film Love Express: The Disappearance of Walerian Borowczyk) wrote,
According to Peter Tombs,
1979-1981 Working again with Borowczyk, Pierro played the Renaissance artist Raphael's treacherous mistress Margherita Luti in "Margherita," the first episode of the 1979 triptych anthology film Héroïnes du Mal (Immoral Women), a quasi-sequel to Borowczyk's 1973 erotic anthology film Contes immoraux (Immoral Tales). Taking place in early 16th century Rome, "Margherita" begins with Raphael (François Guétary) spying on Margherita - a baker's daughter - making love with her fiancé, Tomaso (Gérard Falconetti). While posing for a painting at Raphael's studio, Margherita is spied upon by the wealthy banker, Bernardo Bini (Jean-Claude Dreyfus). After Raphael pierces his eye with a paint-brush, Bini sets out to seduce Margherita and, tempting her with jewels, have her poison Raphael with drugged cherries. Ultimately, Margherita takes advantage of Bini and Raphael's sexual obsession with her, outwitting both men before returning with Bini's jewels to her true love, Tomaso.
According to Pierro, Immoral Women strengthened the public association between herself and Borowczyk:
Portraying Margherita as a doe-eyed femme fatale outwitting the men around her, Pierro spends most of her time in Immoral Women either naked or dressed in flimsy, transparent veils, and engaged in graphic sex scenes. Pierro later admitted,
Premiering in March 1979, Immoral Women drew mixed to negative reviews, although Marina Pierro's performance received praise. Reviewing Immoral Women for L'Express, Michel Braudeau wrote,
Describing Immoral Women as "a surreal masterpiece and possibly Borowczyk's finest work" in the online film journal Senses of Cinema in 2005, Scott Murray wrote, "Marina Pierro, having now replaced Ligia Branice (Goto, l’île d’amour, Blanche, etc.) as the director's muse, glows in her finest performance." Describing Margherita as a femme fatale, Murray wrote,
Pierro's third film with Borowczyk was the 1981 horror film Docteur Jekyll et les femmes (a.k.a. Dr Jekyll and his Women, Blood of Dr Jekyll, and Bloodbath of Dr Jekyll). In Borowczyk's radical interpretation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Pierro in a co-leading role plays Fanny Osbourne (named after Stevenson's real-life wife), the fiancée of Dr Henry Jekyll (Udo Kier) and essentially an original character on the part of Borowczyk and Pierro. According to Pierro, it was the character of Fanny Osbourne that prompted Borowczyk to make the film:
Borowczyk intended his film to be titled Le cas étrange de Dr. Jekyll et Miss Osbourne (The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne) and this was its title during production. Borowczyk's film - set in 19th century London - details the murder and debauchery that takes place in the home of Dr Henry Jekyll on the night of Jekyll and Fanny Osbourne's engagement party. By immersing himself in a bath filled with a chemical cocktail, Jekyll physically transforms to his alter ego, Mr. Hyde (Gérard Zalcberg). Hyde has none of Jekyll's restrictions of morality and he proceeds to rape, torture, and murder various guests, male and female alike. The story has a twist ending of sorts when Fanny finally discovers her fiancé's secret.
The film's extreme violence ensured it would run afoul of the censors of the time, but Pierro - a fan of horror films - believes the violence was justified by the narrative:
Docteur Jekyll et les femmes was shot in four weeks, a shorter time than had been planned, owing to budgetary issues. Swiss actor Howard Vernon, who appeared in the film as Jekyll's scientific rival Dr Lanyon, later claimed, "Borowczyk was very much in love with the leading actress, Marina Pierro, an Italian girl."European Trash Cinema Vol. 2, No. 5, ed. Craig Ledbetter, Kingwood, TX: 1992, p.42 Udo Kier recalled in 2015, "Marina... I haven't seen her for a long time...but she was a beautiful, beautiful woman...beautiful body... I think that Marina, she worked a lot with Borowczyk, he taught her a lot because they knew each other quite well. I think of all the people [in the film], she was directed the most."Hello Dr Jekyll: An Interview with Udo Kier (2015, Arrow Films)
Of her castmates and experience of the film shoot, Pierro herself recalled,
Of co-star Patrick Magee, Pierro recalled,
The book Borowczyk: Cinéaste Onirique was released in conjunction with Docteur Jekyll et les femmes in 1981 and included a preface by Borowczyk's friend, the French Surrealist writer André Pieyre de Mandiargues, who wrote,
Pierro herself was quoted in the book, stating,
Pierro's face was utilized prominently in advertising of Docteur Jekyll et les femmes, including its trailer and posters; however, the title of the film itself became a source of contention, as Pierro has remarked:
Docteur Jekyll et les femmes won Walerian Borowczyk the award for "Best Feature Film Director" at the 1981 Sitges Film Festival. However, the film did not receive a theatrical release in America and it ran in Great Britain for only one week, without a press screening. The film was relatively obscure in the years following its release but it has enjoyed increasing critical esteem as part of renewed interest in the works of Walerian Borowczyk, and is often cited as one of the director's best films. A restored version of Docteur Jekyll et les femmes was released by Arrow Films in 2015 as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne, reflecting Borowczyk's preferred title and the importance of Pierro's character in the narrative.
1982 In 1982, Pierro had a notable role in cult filmmaker Jean Rollin's French horror film La Morte Vivante (The Living Dead Girl) as Hélène, the friend and blood-sister of the titular character (played by French actress Françoise Blanchard).Stine, Scott Allen. The Gorehound's guide to splatter films of the 1980s p.192 (2003) ()("Also of interest in La Morte Vivante is the captivating beauty of actress Marina Pierro; no stranger to French genre films she also starred in Walerian Borowczyk's exemplary Dr. Jekyll et les femmes.") Blanchard's character, Catherine Valmont, is a recently deceased heiress who returns from the dead with an insatiable appetite for human blood; Pierro's character Hélène, initially repulsed, decides to procure human victims for her undead friend.
Pierro had met Rollin briefly at the 1981 Sitges Film Festival, where Docteur Jekyll et les femmes was shown in competition and Rollin's film Fascination was also screening. The following year, Rollin was looking to cast the role of Hélène in The Living Dead Girl, and a friend suggested Pierro for the part. Rollin later stated that Pierro had a fiery temperament that was good for her character. Interviewed in 2002, Pierro's co-star Françoise Blanchard recalled,
Pierro herself recalled,