Roberto Rossellini

Italian acclaimed film director, producer and scenarist, the leading representative of the post World War II wave of realism. His highly acclaimed films included "Open City," 1946, "Paisan," 1948 and "Germany, Year Zero," 1949. He later concentrated on TV documentaries. The neo-Italian realism movement which revolutionized world cinema after the war represented truth, realism, naturalism, and Rossellini represented earthiness and spontaneity, passion and commitment with which he imbued his films.

The son of a wealthy architect, Rossellini had been brought up in a great Roman house with nannies and tutors. Money was for spending and he squandered his inheritance disdainfully. Disinterested in university, he went into film work for Mussolini and the Fascists.

By his 40s, he was a plump Italian of medium height, with a beaked mouth and thinning black hair, Rossellini nonetheless was a man of great seductiveness, enveloping a woman with such attention, such romantic fantasy, such drama, that he would mesmerize her. His life was filled with women. He and his wife were amiably separated and he had a series of high profile lovers, most notably his mistress for several years, Anna Magnani.

In 1948, Ingrid Bergman wrote to Rossellini, "If you ever need a Swedish actress..." He received the letter on his birthday, 8 May, and he responded eagerly. They arranged a meeting on 26 September 1948 in Paris. The Lindstroms' and Rossellini met at the Hotel George V and discussed the film they would make together, a story of love on the barren island of Stromboli, a great work of art.

Bergman was coming from a confining marriage and a career that was limited to virtuous, two-dimensional roles and he offered her artistic truth, creative vision, danger and excitement. He offered more than that, bragging to his friends that he intended to cuckold Dr. Lindstrom, "Swedish women are easy to impress as they have such cold husbands.