Chapter 8 - You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone: The Biography of Nico

La Dolce Vita is Federico Fellini’s most renowned work. One of the director’s first inspirations for the film was the ‘Hollywood on the Tiber’ phenomenon that swept Rome in the 1950s and ’60s. During this period, Tinseltown studios set up camp in the Italian capital, using the cheap labour and gorgeous locations afforded by the city. As celebrities emerged from Cinecittà Studios,21 they would be snapped by waiting photojournalists. This became the foundation of the film’s plot, which centres around seven days and nights in the life of gossip journalist Marcello Rubini (played by screen idol Marcello Mastroianni). It was a large-scale satire, a not-so-tongue-in-cheek critique of the soulless celebrity worship emer­ging in culture. Broken into seven different sequences depicting Rubini’s various activities, the movie contains clear references to Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, as well as T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. It also provided a virtual panorama of Roman life, at the very moment when the capital was evolving from its rural past into a cosmopol­itan city, fuelling a tourist tsunami that continues to this day. The film went on to become a worldwide sensation. Nominated for four Academy Awards and winning the Palme d’Or at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Foreign Film, La Dolce Vita22 made almost $20 million, crushing the record for the highest box-office takings of any foreign film.23

Nico’s best-known cinematic turn occurred by happenstance. While staying with friends in Rome, the model accompanied them to the studio where La Dolce Vita was being made. Fellini was looking to shoot an orgy scene for the film, yet no one was able to give him advice on how best to stage it. Seeing an opportunity to get in front of the camera once again, Nico offered to guide him. Recalling her first meeting with the famed director, she recounted, ‘I was with my friends and there were some props on a table. I picked up a candlestick with a false light on it, and I was just holding it up. No, it was a candelabra. And Fellini saw me and ran over to me and said, “I have dreamt of you. I recognise your face. You will look wonderful with candlelight. You must be a star in La Dolce Vita.”’

Nico could not have hoped for a better springboard to the higher echelons of cultured society. Fellini was immediately captivated by the blonde bombshell, and quickly elevated the walk-on role he originally conceived for her into a full speaking part, with Nico appearing across various scenes. When the young woman expressed apprehension towards taking on a role that was so much more sub­stantial than her previous on-camera experiences, Fellini instructed her to play a model named Nico.

The years of already ‘playing’ Nico paid off, both on and off screen. Though she does not appear until more than two hours into the film, her character is memorable, an effervescent spark in the scenes she is featured in. Referred to as Swedish in the movie, and credited as Nico Otzak, her time on camera perfectly encapsulates the idea of a role within a role, of Christa playing the part of Nico, who in turn is play­ing the part of Nico in the film. Whether she is chatting in the back of a convertible on the way to her fictional fiancé’s castle, dissecting a coat of arms or biting her on-screen beau’s thumb, the script, as well as the action, seemed to echo the frustrations and complications felt by the young actress. One line seemed like an on-screen confession: ‘I finished modelling a year ago. Enough’s enough.’

Ignited by her turn in La Dolce Vita, Nico became more deter­mined than ever to leave modelling for ever and pursue her acting career full-time. Twenty-one years old, and on a high after the suc­cess of the Fellini film, she landed a lead role in a highly anticipated new project. The film, Plein soleil, or Purple Noon, was a French adaptation of the best-selling Patricia Highsmith novel, with most scenes shot on a yacht off the coast of the Italian island of Ischia. With René Clément on board to direct, the movie was set to be the hit it became even before the first frame was in the can.24 Purple Noon seemed to be the step Nico needed to take in order to fully escape the fashion world and become completely ensconced in acting.

Yet despite it being the chance she had been waiting for, Nico somehow forgot the date when filming for Purple Noon was set to start. Shooting began, and Nico, in the main female role, was nowhere to be found. Frustrated by the setback caused by the miss­ing ingénue, Clément gave the role to French actress Marie Laforêt. By the time Nico arrived in Ischia, the production was well under way, her opportunity gone. The only apparent bright spot was meet­ing the male star of the film: a handsome French parachutist turned actor named Alain Delon.

Already hailed as the James Dean of France, Delon quickly made her forget about Purple Noon, sweeping Nico off her feet in a whirl­wind affair and taking her around the island for a few days, dur­ing which she admitted to falling in love with the actor. Nico later referred to him as ‘the most dangerous man I ever met’, an idea that was bolstered by Delon bragging that he had connections to dangerous underworld gangs. ‘He was like a gypsy,’ she claimed, ‘with strong eyes and dark hair, and I wanted him for myself. I had never felt so possessive before. It was a very emotional feeling whenever I saw him. I could not control it.’ But the romance was short-lived: unbeknownst to the besotted Nico, Delon was already involved in another relationship with his Purple Noon companion Romy Schneider. Once filming was wrapped up, the actor returned to Rome to be with Schneider. Though still hung up on Delon, and with her acting dreams temporarily destroyed, Nico retreated once again to Papatakis and modelling.

Back in New York, Nico dovetailed taking singing and acting lessons with embarking on a new round of modelling assignments: on magazine covers, in ads for a myriad of products and the ubi­quitous fashion spreads.25 Though she wanted to move away from modelling, she liked the financial security it offered. Friend and fellow model Anne-Sophie Monet spoke highly of Nico, saying that she was ‘a good model, very professional, though it was obvious … that she didn’t take it at all seriously. I think she just wanted to earn the money and do something else … I think she took a lot of jobs on, whatever was on offer – she was always in work. She earned an awful lot of money.’ This would explain the seeming lack of consist­ency in the brands she would work for, as having cash seemed to be the priority, regardless of the opportunity on offer.26