Biography for
Marisa Berenson More at IMDb Pro »

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Trivia

Grandaughter of famous fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli.

Sister of Berry Berenson.

Aunt of actor Oz Perkins.

Marisa's sister, actress/photographer Berry Berenson, was one of the 58 victims of the terrorist-hijacked plane that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Former sister-in-law of actor Anthony Perkins.

Marisa and Jim Randall lived in a million-dollar mansion in Beverly Hills he bought from Debbie Reynolds. The house had a private movie theater with 35mm projectors fitted with Cinemascope lenses. It also included his and hers bathrooms, the floors and walls of which were marble and granite. It had three swimming pools with waterfalls one into the other on the side of a hill. It had a private barbershop with regulation barber chair, sauna and gym. The house was fitted with state-of-the-art security devices which included TV camera, motion detectors and wireless "panic buttons" which they carried with them in the house, and which were wired directly into the Beverly Hills Police Dept. A security guard lived on the premises and manned a control room in the basement where he monitored the TV cameras, etc. The wedding of Randall and Berenson was held in this house, and George Hamilton was Randall's best man. The reception turned into a brawl when some of the guests got into a fight.

Before entering films, she was one of the top fashion models of the 1960s, a favorite at "Vogue".

Measurements: 34B-23-35 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)

Her daughter, Starlite Melody Randall, appears on the reality show "Gastineau Girls" (2005) on E!.

Is of Lithuanian, Italian, Egyptian, Swiss, and French ethnicity.

Her father was Robert L. Berenson, a U.S. diplomat of Lithuanian-Jewish descent (original family name Valvrojenski). He was related to legendary art critic Bernard Berenson, an expert in Italian Renaissance. Her mother was Countess Maria Luisa (Marisa) Yvonne Radha (aka "Gogo") de Wendt de Kerlor. Gogo was the daughter of Swiss-French Count Wilhelm de Wendt de Kerlor and fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli. Born in Rome, Schiaparelli was the daughter of Celestino Schiaparelli (1841-1919), of Italian stock, and wife, of Egyptian stock. (Her great-uncle was Giovanni Schiaparelli, an astronomer who discovered the canals of Mars). When Schiaparelli married Count Wilhelm, they relocated to Greenwich Village where Gogo was born. He soon fled, and Elsa's career in fashion designing began. She was hugely successful in Paris, second only to Coco Chanel and she even collaborated with Salvador Dalí and Jean Cocteau. (Marisa herself maintained the tradition, becoming a top model in the 60s both in Europe and in New York).

Best friend of Cabaret (1972) co-star Liza Minnelli.

Aunt of musician Elvis Perkins.

She and ex husband Jim Randall have a daughter Starlite Melody Randall born in 1977.

Berenson is chairman of the board of Culture Project, an organization that sponsors the theater.

Berenson appeared on the cover of the July 1970 issue of Vogue as well as the cover of Time on 15 December 1975.

She was known as "The Queen of the Scene" for her frequent appearances at nightclubs and other social venues in her youth; Yves Saint-Laurent dubbed her "the girl of the Seventies".

In the early 1970s, Berenson was the companion of the French banking heir Baron David René de Rothschild, the younger son of Baron Guy de Rothschild.

In the late 1970s it was announced she would star as Vivien Leigh in a biographical film. Unfortunately the plans eventually fell.

Personal Quotes

She was just this angel that landed on this planet for a short amount of time. - On her late sister Berry Berenson

I hope she didn't suffer. It's hard to take in. I have hope and tremendous faith. I think that's what gets you through life...through tragedies is when you have faith. -- MB commenting on the plane crash death of her sister Berry during the 9/11 attacks.

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