Marisa Berenson
Marisa Berenson (born
February 15,
1946) is an
American actress and model.
Known more for her beauty than her acting ability, Berenson nonetheless has appeared in distinctive roles, including Frau von Aschenbach in
Luchino Visconti's 1971 film
Death in Venice, the Jewish department store heiress Natalia Landauer in the 1972 film
Cabaret, and the apathetic beauty Lady Lyndon in the 1975
Stanley Kubrick film
Barry Lyndon. She has appeared in a number of other movies, most of them filmed in Europe, where she is based, as well as in made-for-TV movies in the United States.
She is the elder daughter of Robert L. Berenson, a U.S. diplomat of Lithuanian Jewish descent whose original family name was Valvrojenski. Her mother is Countess Maria Luisa Yvonne Radha de Wendt de Kerlor, better known as Gogo Schiaparelli, a socialite of Italian, Swiss, French, and Egyptian ancestry. (She is now Marchesa Cacciapuoti di Giugliano). Her maternal grandmother was the fashion designer
Elsa Schiaparelli, and her sister was the model, actress, and photographer
Berry Berenson.
Berenson also is a great-great-niece of
Giovanni Schiaparelli, an Italian astronomer who believed he had discovered the supposed canals of Mars, a great-great-niece of art expert
Bernard Berenson (1865 â€" 1959), and a great-great-niece of
Senda Berenson (1868 â€" 1954), an athlete and educator who was one of the first two women elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
She has been married and divorced twice, to rivet manufacturer James Randall (by whom she has a daughter, Starlite Melody Randall, 1977-) and lawyer Aaron Richard Golub.
