When I first met Greta Scacchi, as she took the first steps on her career as an actress, she exemplified that couldn’t-care-less attitude defined by the Italian word, sprezzatura. Wikipedia tells me that the word originates from Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, where it is defined as "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it". But when everything comes easily sprezzatura can soon turn to sloppiness and conceit.

Greta arrived in Hollywood in a flurry of publicity to play opposite one of it’s biggest stars, Harrison Ford. By that time she had already played major roles in ten movies and an array of prestige TV series. Now, when it seemed all had fallen before her, her incipient grandiosity floated to the top. She bad-mouthed her Oscar-nominated director, and snubbed other Hollywood big names. Precipitantly, she started complaining about being typecast and was soon in an on-set row with, the legendary indie director, Robert Altman. Then.famously, she turned down the role in Basic Instinct that would make Sharon Stone a superstar, and, by her own admission, let scripts being sent her pile up unread.

In the meantime, she fell in love and, it would appear for the first time, learnt that you can’t always get what you want. Abandoned with a small child, she then compounded all her past errors by portraying herself in the media as a victim — and there is nothing less charismatic than a victim. Greta thought that she had established herself sufficiently to be able to return to Hollywood at her choosing, but soon discovered that was not the case. The extreme reversals of fortune of John Travolta should have been warning enough; it was only after many years in the wilderness that he was rediscovered by, the cineaste from the video store, Quentin Tarantino, who enabled his considerable charisma to light up the big screen again.

Where Greta had once been so infectiously full of herself, she now retreated back inside her skin. She made appearances without a shred of makeup, her blond hair returned to mousey brown, wearing clothes that most young girls would not be seen dead in. I sometimes wondered whether these drab utility clothes were Greta’s version of sack cloth and ashes. Was this her being brave, or just masochistic? The shocked and dismayed reactions of her fans could be read in the comments left on-line. And, I felt much the same when I saw that this was how she appeared before the cameras when she, at last, got her chance of a Hollywood comeback, playing George Clooney’s wife, in Syriana. Sadly, her part was entirely removed from the final film.

Whereas once Greta had been radiant with the charisma of promise, her appearances now just created a nostalgia fo what once had been. There have been many actresses who have parlayed their sexual mystique well into their sixties — Charlotte Rampling, Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon, Helen Mirren, to name a few — but Greta prematurely turned her back back on everything she had been and did some truly dreadful feminist films. The best of her post- Hollywood performances came in the Australian feature, Looking for Allibrandi in which Greta played a sad and withdrawn single mother of a sixteen-year-old girl. Set in the Italian community of extended families, her performance was touching, but demonstrated that the one type of character that a highly charismatic actor cannot play is a down-to-earth workaday ordinary person. It’s true that Greta, like Marilyn Monroe, may have been able to pass unnoticed when she chose, but “passing unnoticed” is not really what acting is all about.

By chance, one night, I caught Greta making a guest appearance on BBC 2’s The Review Show. They were doing a special edition on the Cannes film festival and had invited La Scacchi on to give a star’s point of view — and, no doubt, to bring a little glamour to the proceedings. On the contrary, Greta, dressed in her usual nondescript fashion, was behaving as if trying to wipe out any vestige of charisma which she might have left. Like a prudish old lady she defensively brushed aside references to her nude scenes, and, against the acerbic comments of her fellow panelists, gave the usual luvvie effusion of soft compliments to any film under discussion. Her voice, the earnest whisper of old, sounded as full of intimacy as ever; but now there was no intimacy of content. She was refusing to interpret, refusing to personalise, as if trying to be as bland as possible. When it came to singling out her favourite film of the festival, she opted for a documentary — you could almost hear the producer’s heart hit the floor.

This fall from grace was momentarily broken when Greta suddenly espoused the plight of our declining fish stock and sought publicity for the cause. With a return of her old chutzpah she spontaneously stripped off to be photographed cuddling a large dead cod. The collision of hot and cold was whacky, bizarre — one might even say surreal, recalling Breton’s Soluble Fish, and Magritte’s Collective Invention — and, perhaps, because of that, it worked. Greta got more publicity than she had had for a long time, and a string of other stars followed suit, “doing a Greta” for the cause. The Eco loophole had allowed her to be light and flirtatious again, but this spirit was not to last.

The most brutal self-harm came in an interview with the Telegraph where she attempted to rewrite history, claiming that she had not been happy to do the nude scenes which brought her fame. This would certainly be a surprise to those of us who were present at the time, but Greta was now obviously out to completely erase her hot reputation. It transpired that her teenage daughter had been embarrassed when some of her chums, hardly surprisingly, discovered nude photos of her mother on the internet. Now, Greta was attempting to present an image which would be approved by the PTA. The interview, that took place in a Brighton café, was interrupted by the appearance of her son asking for money to buy chips. She then rattled on about the high cost of school uniforms. It would appear that the screen goddess now wished to be seen as just another school mum.

The photograph that accompanied the article, taken on the beach opposite, showed Greta, her hair chopped and style-less, her face scrubbed, her expression “right-on” — staring at the camera, looking sour and grim, no hint of a smile, no light in her eyes. In those early scenes, which she she had just disavowed, she had been very much alive; her eyes were now dead. She was the forlorn victim of a crass piece of miscasting — which she had perpetrated on herself. It was as absurd as her once being cast as Margaret Thatcher; but that had been a jest. This new guise was clearly intended to pass for real.

Charisma reveals a truth about our essential core beyond the accommodations we may try to make with our humdrum everyday lives. For some of us that core rarely sees the light of day, because we keep it carefully hidden away. A great actor must be prepared to risk all and take the opposite course. Beyond all the tricks of impersonation, the costume and the makeup, an actor must be prepared to expose the root of who s/he truly is. One cannot choose the why and wherefore of one’s coreself any more than one can

 

choose the colour of one’s eyes. An actor’s charisma is a force that springs from the unconscious, like the doppelgänger we meet in our dreams.

Looking back it is hard not to draw breath when one realises just how much Greta has let slip. Compare her to the Italian actress, Monica Bellucci, who is just four years her junior. Both women have been included in numerous lists of the most desirable women in the world. Both began their working life modelling in Milan. And both used their spoils to pay their own way through drama school. From there Greta had a meteoric getaway, stepping straight into leading roles and making her breakthrough film, Heat and Dust, when she was just twenty-two. Even before that film was released she was being hailed in The Sunday Times magazine as a star. And, at that time, she was busy notching up further screen credits on several continents.

By contrast, Monica had to work far harder to get her career under way, not making her breakthrough film, L’Appartement, until she was thirty-one. It was also far harder for her to get her break in Hollywood than for Greta whose first language is English; but that was when it all started to go wrong for her . In the meantime, Bellucci carefully nurtured the fashion and cosmetic promotion contracts of the kind that Greta had repeatedly cold- shouldered. Hence, despitewhat Bellucci says in interviews, she has been careful to preserve her looks, while Greta, with sprezzatura now turned toxic, has persisted in behaving as if she couldn’t give a damn.

Now, both women are in their fifties, both the mother of two children. Bellucci is filming the lead female role in Spectre — the new James Bond film; and where is Greta? Let’s just say, she has dropped off the radar. She is still acting but is no longer a star.