After years of silence, Roberto Russo, husband of the diva, talks about their relationship and the last, very difficult twenty years. Those of her illness, in which he never left her alone: ”To never make her lack for anything”
He was Monica Vitti’s companion for forty-nine years. Roberto Russo, in an interview with Walter Veltroni at Corriere della Sera, returned to talk about his relationship with the great actress who passed away at the age of 90 in February of this year. Retired for a long time now, Vitti suffered from a degenerative disease called “Lewy body dementia”, caused by an accumulation of proteins in the brain that causes severe disturbances in attention, speech, motor faculties and induces apathy. photo | video
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LOVE THAT IS BORN AND GROWS – Their story was born in a completely unexpected way: “We were on the set of Theresa the bark. I was 25, she was sixteen older than me. She was the leading actress, I hit the clapperboard, – says Russo, – Since I saw her I have not understood anything. She was engaged. I had never seen a woman of that intelligence, that sympathy, that beauty. She was like the films she made: she knew how to make people laugh, make people cry, make people think. Our history, which lasted almost half a century, was the adventure of a symbiosis “.
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“I MISS EVERY INSTANT” – As Monica Vitti’s husband reveals: “We never left each other for a second”. An almost symbiotic love that accompanied them for a long time, even in the darkest moments of her illness: “Think that in fifty years I have slept away from her only one night, for an award that I had to collect. Monica and I never slept a wink that night ”. And after her death, which took place a few months ago, the lack of her made itself felt: “I am still in love like a madman. Since February I have missed a beat every moment “.
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THE DISEASE THAT CONSUMED IT – Over the past twenty years, the actress has been suffering from a degenerative disease that has slowly led her to no longer be self-sufficient. The discovery, as Russo recounts, took place gradually, also because Vitti did everything he could to deny the holes in memory she had begun to suffer from. “I took her to a famous doctor. She showed off her camouflage skills and in the end this luminary hit me saying that Monica was fine and that I was the one who had to be examined “. But the reality of her condition showed itself at a certain point, forcing her to cure herself and retire to private life. With her partner always by her side.
AN STILL OF SALVATION – “For twenty years. Twenty years here with her. To never make her be alone, to never miss anything. Twenty years without ever leaving the house except for shopping or to take a walk around here. I defended Monica about her, her desire for privacy to the end, I tried to make her laugh when she could, and to always hold her hand. And I would do it again, I would do it again every day of these twenty years that I do not separate from the other thirty. They have all been wonderful, because they have all been with her ”.
THE END – “The night before he died we realized that something was wrong. Monica wasn’t the same as always. The next morning I called the ambulance but there was nothing to do, we stopped at the nearest hospital “.
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