In Rome, my mother inevitably became a protagonist of the snapshots taken by roaming freelance photographers, later dubbed “paparazzi,” after Walter Santesso’s character, Paparazzo, in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita.

Mamma was never caught off guard by them, at least not while doing anything worse than wearing a sleepy expression late at night in a club. Aided by her training in classical ballet, she naturally displayed impeccable composure on every occasion. Even so, she can’t be given full credit for her dignified appearance. In those days, actors and photographers often developed friendships. My mother had her favorites, to whom she gave exclusive shots in exchange for flattering images. Her favorite shots were those taken by Pierluigi Praturlon. He was an omnipresent photographer of the “Hollywood on the Tiber” scene, and he was often requested to take photographs for William Wyler, King Vidor, Vittorio De Sica, and Federico Fellini. Pierluigi inspired the climactic scene in La Dolce Vita, having portrayed his friend Anita Ekberg illuminated by his car’s headlights as she waded across the Trevi Fountain at the end of an evening of clubgoing. Actresses loved even his off-set photographs, because, while his photos celebrated the diva aspect of their personalities, Pierluigi was also able to capture something deeper.

Mamma trusted him. He caught her perfectly on the terrace of the Hotel Hassler when she opened the telegram announcing her New York Film Critics Circle best-actress award for The Nun’s Story. Pierluigi became a member of the family, one among the few invited to my parents’ wedding, in Morges, Vaud, Switzerland, in 1969. In the short movie of the event filmed by my uncle Luca, Pierluigi can be seen kissing my brother, Sean, on the forehead.

Over the years, I’ve met several people who claim to have introduced my parents. It is a fact that in 1961 my mother went to the Rome premiere of Breakfast at Tiffany’s with Olimpia Torlonia, my father’s best friend, but seven years passed before my mother actually met my father.

At the time of her marriage to my father and my birth, in 1970, my mother’s public life as an actress and the days of paparazzi photographs came to an end, by her choice. She slowly withdrew from the spotlight, and her priorities began to change. And Rome made it possible.

Since the beginning of the 1960s, the busy star who joked at openings with Alberto Sordi and danced with Renato Rascel had been assembling a Roman circle of friends and making a home in the city. Henry Fonda, who performed with my mother and Mel Ferrer in War and Peace, met and married an Italian, Afdera Franchetti, in Rome. The couples saw each other frequently, and through Afdera and her sister Lorian, Mamma began to live the life of a true Roman. Perhaps in part because of its indolence, Rome always protected my mother, giving her time and space.

Although relatively brief, my mother’s career was extremely intense, constructed using the discipline she had applied to her life since her childhood, a period painfully marked by World War II. At 13, she wanted to become a ballerina and began working hard toward achieving that goal. At 16, in Nazi-occupied Holland, she suffered from hunger. She survived by eating turnips and boiled tulip bulbs until the liberation, when she was saved by the newly formed United Nations.

Not even 10 years passed before she became a star. But my mother had none of the tantrums we often associate with celebrity. Throughout her life she rose at dawn, a habit formed when she had to arrive on time to a set looking perfect and knowing her lines by heart. I believe she still holds the record for magazine covers—she appeared on 650 of them. Without a doubt, this exposure meant a great deal of fame and a lot of glamour, but shooting that many magazine covers also meant she spent a total of nearly two years of her life doing only that. At a certain point, she decided she wanted to do something else. She made that decision not once but twice: first to be a full-time mother, then to be a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. During both of those times in her life, public images of my mother grew increasingly rare and finally came to an end. After her impromptu comeback in Robin and Marian (1976), directed by Richard Lester, she made few other films. She made her last appearance on-screen in the role of an angel named Hap in Always (1989), directed by Steven Spielberg.