When Hollywood had landed in the Tiber, Rome, Italy

Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Rome, 1963.

Every time that summer comes, Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck is shown on Italian television. I’m not sure exactly why RAI chooses this time of year to show us the movie, but I’m sure it is not for the benefit of the Romans but, rather, that of tourists, who insist on viewing the city in a more romantic light. 

In the movie, Audrey Hepburn plays a northern-European princess who comes to Rome on an official visit, but manages to escape the palace where she is staying one night. The next day, awed by everything she is seeing and experiencing, she visits the city’s famous sights on the back of a scooter driven by Gregory Peck, playing the role of an American journalist.  They are forced to part ways at midnight and her charming guide returns her to the palace.

The last scene of the film was shot in the Grand Hall of the Palazzo Colonna.

Naturally, the Eternal City had never stopped radiating glamour, sometimes by means of the Caesars, other times by means of the Popes, artists and all its princes, but now it was a different time and required a different means.

St. Peter’s Square, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in the seventeenth century.

So, the much-seen ride around the city on the scooter to take in all the marvellous sights, as seen through the enchanted eyes of an Audrey Hepburn at the peak of her beauty and freshness, plus the ruggedly handsome physique of her on-screen partner, captivated the world and American tourists started to pour into the city.

Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck riding on a Vespa around Rome.

They were fast times in the 60s and Hollywood had landed in the Tiber. Cinecittà had become a dream factory and American actors had bought homes in the via Appia or were living in the big hotels and there was a constant coming and going of limousines, chauffeurs, starlets, the nightly escapes of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, Rosselini eating spaghetti all’ amatriciana in the Osteria dell’ Orso with Ingrid Bergman. Ava Gardner and Rita Hayworth were beautiful, too. But Sophia Loren was the most beautiful of all.

Elizabeth Taylor starring as Cleopatra. For years “Cleopatra” was the most expensive film in history, something that was not on 20th Century-Fox’s mind when it took on the project.

“Have you seen them all?” I asked an old friend with whom I was having this conversation one Sunday, sitting at Doney, on the via Veneto, sipping an aperitif.

“Of course. The Hollywood actors fell upon us like legionnaires.  They were our myths. Orson Welles, Rock Hudson, Burt Lancaster, Gregory Peck, Robert Taylor, Charlton Heston and Clark Gable, who said that the first time he saw Rome was from his plane in the bombardment of 1943. Who else? Oh yes, and Farouk (exiled king of Egypt) who would sit at one of the tables of the Café de Paris opposite and would tell whoever was sitting with him that, soon, there would only be five monarchs in the world: the four in a deck of cards and the Queen of England. 

I listened to him and I tried to imagine that page in Rome’s history that has turned but, as it appears, has not been forgotten. Perhaps there are others, as nostalgic as my friend Ercole, who come to sit at the tables of Doney and the Café de Paris, but they can be counted now on the fingers of one hand. You can usually see them on Sunday mornings, when there are no cars and the tourists haven’t arrived yet, reading their newspapers in a sunlit Rome, and then they go for a walk to the Villa Borghese which, just like in the past, is the favourite stroll for locals. 

The Villa Borghese Gardens.

His enthusiasm was in reference to the time before Dolce Vita, when he had been just twenty years old.  With the sudden appearance of so many actors, he told me, the Romans would read about the parties in the various villas along the via Appia, about the ‘spicy’ stories in the hotels of the via Veneto, the restaurants the actors would eat at, their sudden loves and equally sudden break-ups, which all looked as if they had been created, just to be photographed and narrated. 

In the 50s and 60s the Via Veneto was the center of social life in Rome. Ιn the picture, the Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni.

“What was Rome like then?” I asked him.

“It seemed like it had become the centre of the universe once more. It was flooded with American tourists who wanted to photograph it. Cars, scooters – the squares were full of people.  I remember the tables at the two adjoining cafés in the Piazza del Popolo (Rosati and Canova) with their patrons out enjoying the first spring sunshine. The city looked like it had been transformed into some giant film set.  It was during this magical time that Tyrone Power and Linda Christian got married at Santa Maria Francesca in the Roman Agora, the first post-war marriage, and which was labelled a modern fairy tale. 

Tyron Power and Linda Christian on the day of their wedding in Rome, 1949.

The Church of Santa Maria Francesca in the Roman Forum.

It was just one more way for the Eternal City to project a glamorous new image to the rest of the world.

Listening to him, I couldn’t help thinking that there had always been a harmonious relationship between Rome and the cinema or, even more accurately, a mutual attraction, since there was no other industry in the city (most industries being located in northern Italy). 

Of course, Rome’s own theatricality played a significant role, as did the temperament of its inhabitants. Think of the sheer number of movies that were filmed in its squares, markets, the interiors of its palaces, in front of its monuments and churches. The setting was ideal.

Fontana di Trevi, the most spectacular fountain in the world.

My long sojourn in Rome is described in the book: Feeling Rome