Gucci: glamor, blood and ‘Stravaganza’

“It is much better to cry in a Rolls-Royce than to be happy on a bicycle” is one of the most mythical phrases of Patrizia Reggiani, known in Italy as Vedova Nera (the Black Widow). This extravagant and self-conscious character is the one that Lady Gaga has played in House of Gucci, the film that will be released on November 26 and where she embodies what will be her second leading role in the cinema and the one that some say could bring her the Oscar that escaped with A Star Is Born. The film brings back to the present a story that took place in 1995, when Patrizia Reggiani sent a hitman to kill her husband, millionaire Italian businessman Maurizio Gucci, who ran the famous clothing brand that bears his family's name.

Suffering a kind of curse

The film has all the ingredients to be a bomb at the box office: part of a very powerful true story based on money, glamor and ambition, and concentrates a cast and a luxury director. Starting at the end: Ridley Scott is the one who has finally rolled up his sleeves to explain to the world in film version this story that has filled so many pages in Italy for decades. He and his wife are in charge of producing it and he alone is the one who directs it. But this did not always have to be so. The film has been suffering for years from a kind of curse that has meant that until now it has not been able to come to fruition.

His journey began in 2006, when Ridley Scott announced he would direct a film about the biggest blot on the Gucci family's resume, starring Angelina Jolie and Leonardo DiCaprio. But six years after that announcement, the film continued to show no signs of life, until the director's daughter, Jordan Scott, was announced as the film's director instead of her father. Also at that time Penélope Cruz entered the game, since it was leaked that she could play Reggiani, a role that she has not finally played – despite the fact that after seeing how she plays another Italian femme fatale, Donnatella Versace, in American crime story, we know that he could have given a lot of himself. In November 2016 Wong Kar-wai publicly announced that he would direct the film, but other than this it only transpired that Margot Robbie would be the new star. Finally, in November 2019 Ridley Scott took over the reins of the film again and it was learned that the reconstruction would be made from the book The house of Gucci. A sensational story of murder, madness, glamor and greed, published by Sara Gay Forden in 2001.

After so many rounds, it's clear that the movie wasn't moving forward because Scott didn't want the stakes to be light. A story that has been occupying Italian public opinion for so many years could not end up looking like a minor production that did not add anything at a creative or production level.

But what is the story that Scott wants to tell in the film? Well, the one that originated around the Machiavellian mind of Patrizia Reggiani, whom she has often seen walking down the street with a parrot on her shoulder, with which she has even made statements to the press. It all started –behind the scenes– on May 25, 1995, when an anonymous man killed Maurizio Gucci with three clumsy shots –two missed…– at the door of his home in Milan, the Italian capital of fashion. Gucci was a very rich and powerful man and the possible enemies could be many. For this reason, the police took 23 months to reach Patrizia Reggiani, who, when she hired a pizzaiolo who also worked as a camel in spare time to act as a hit man, had already been divorced from Gucci for four years.

Reggiani and Gucci's relationship had been going badly for years. Ambition had deteriorated the marriage they had established in 1973, by which time she had ipso facto become a prominent member of the Milanese jet set, baptized by the press as Lady Gucci. Reggiani's need for constant ostentation, the daughter of a trucker and a waitress, born on the outskirts of Milan, had caused the Gucci to dislike her, something that was multiplied when she became the reason for many internal rivalries. in the family business because of his desire to increase his power and public relevance. With all this burden, the marriage finally fell apart in 1985, when Gucci went on a business trip and never returned. He had started an extramarital affair with a younger woman named Paola Franchi, something Reggiani would soon discover.

But she wouldn't just forgive him for that abrupt end to his kingdom of ego and money. After seven years apart, in 1992, Gucci and Reggiani officially divorced, having agreed in writing that she would continue to receive alimony of half a million dollars per year plus one million per year as compensation for the divorce. But this amount based on the maintenance of the two daughters they had, Allegra and Alessandra, was never enough for Lady Gucci, who decided to seek a better future on her own.

After the legal divorce, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which they were able to remove without further consequences. Even so, she decided to spend her convalescence at the home of her friend Pina Auriemma, her medium, whom she had met twenty years earlier on the island of Ischia. It was during his convalescence that the official story says that the idea of ​​ending Maurizio Gucci's life was conceived, since Reggiani was obsessed with the idea that he would spend his fortune on his new partner and not save it for his two daughters. . In addition, she also feared that Franchi would become pregnant by her ex-husband and her daughters would have to share their father's million-dollar fortune tomorrow. Even more millionaire when in 1983 he multiplied it by selling what was left of Gucci to Bahrain Investcorp, which paid him 120 million euros. So strong was Reggiani's fixation that he made the mistake of calling Franchi several times to accuse her of being a gold digger. And she said it precisely, who had spent her father's savings on mink coats and high-end cars from a young age in order to climb the social ladder until she got a good marriage.

The medical coordinator at my job is so annoying & bossy. Idc if she is the morning shift manager - that doesn't me… https://t.co/xHyDJ5d0uW

— brOoklyN-kiD-b@bez♡ Tue Mar 09 15:48:05 +0000 2021

23 months after Gucci's death and having gone to her funeral with her head covered in a black shawl and hugging each of her daughters, the police went looking for her at her home. After ruling out that neither the Mafia nor some mysterious envoy from the Arab countries with whom Gucci had done business had liquidated him, a mistake by the Aliexpress hitman that she and Auriemma had managed made Reggiani the prime suspect. "They have come because of my husband's death," she said, with her characteristic coldness, to the policemen who went to look for her. The same coldness that he had already shown the day he spoke to the press about the death of his ex and father of his daughters, when he said: “Humanly I'm sorry. But from a personal point of view I cannot say the same”.

The death of Maurizio Gucci then became an even bigger social scandal. However, the deceased's daughters stood by her mother, first denying that she was guilty and, once judged, arguing that as a result of the tumor she had not been psychologically stable and that she had been manipulated by her psychic friend. . In 1998 Reggiani was sentenced to 29 years in prison, which after appeals was reduced to 26. She served only 18 and was released for good behavior after having dedicated herself to watering the plants and taking care of a pair of ferrets that she had adopted as pets in prison. of San Vittore in Milan, which she has always referred to as San Vittore Residence.

“I didn't want to fail”

In 2011 they offered him the third degree, but he turned it down because in order to qualify, he had to have a job. "I have never worked and I am not going to start now," he expressed emphatically on that occasion, preferring to spend five more years in prison before lifting a finger in exchange for a salary. In 2016 she was finally released, and when she was released from prison, journalists asked her: “Why did you hire a hitman to kill Maurizio Gucci? Why didn't you shoot him yourself?" “I don't have very good eyesight. I didn't want to fail," she replied undaunted.

Her cold psychology has made her the protagonist of other great phrases and epic media moments that will have to be seen how they are portrayed in Scott and Gaga's film. But her character is so powerful in reality that it is difficult to improve on it in fiction. After doing what he supposedly did for the –financial!– benefit of his daughters, when he was released from prison he went to court to request that they pay him the pension of one million euros per year that he was entitled to according to the divorce agreement he had signed with Maurizio Gucci. The pension had to be paid by his daughters, universal heirs of the deceased, who evidently went through this request, since they had finally opened their eyes and denied him any relationship, to the point where he does not know his grandchildren. Reggiani, who also claimed the millions back from them during the 18 years in prison, has recently asked them to be able to use the large family properties they have inherited. For example, the Creole, the largest wooden sailboat in the world, which she described as a "third child."

Excellent cast

Fascinated by this story, Ridley Scott has finally drawn a substantial number of stars to the project, making up a promising cast. Beyond Lady Gaga and Adam Driver, the filmmaker did not want the secondary roles to be just pure filler, but rather he wanted to give them the relevance they had in the internal struggles of this failed fashion dynasty, definitely fallen from grace with the arrival of the third generation. Thus, the Oscar winner Jeremy Irons will give life to Rodolfo Gucci, son of the founder and father of the late Maurizio. Rodolfo is the man to whom the Gucci house owes its great sales explosion and also its commercial prestige on a global level.

Irons' character will have to face Aldo Gucci, who is his brother and who will be played by Al Pacino. Despite the fact that during the time he was linked to the firm it also experienced significant growth, he is remembered for his rivalry with Maurizio, with whom he competed to occupy the company's leadership when Aldo died, which caused serious disputes between both. In fact, this moment is crucial for the main plot of the film, since it is when Reggiani's ambition makes an appearance within the family, stimulating her husband's competitiveness to help him reach the top of the company.

The cast is completed by Jared Leto, an actor closely linked to fashion who, coincidentally, in some of his most stellar appearances on the red carpets – for example, at the 2018 and 2019 Met Galas – usually wears Gucci. The American will give life to Paolo Gucci, who is the son of Aldo and who is remembered for having competed for control of the firm with both his father and his cousin Maurizio. In fact, Paolo was expelled from the company.

The most surreal addition to the cast is Salma Hayek, who is married to François-Henri Pinault, master of Kering, the luxury group that currently owns Gucci. The actress with Mexican roots will give life to Pina Auriemma, the seer, friend and confessor of Patrizia Reggiani, who played a very important role in all the investigations into the death of Maurizio Gucci. Some even said that she was a co-instigator of the crime.

But it is not only the cast that is attractive for this film, but the wardrobe and all the aesthetics that surround it are also a claim that has the entire fashion business very excited. The head of wardrobe will be the British costume designer Janty Yates, who has had to make a huge immersion in the Italian fashion of the seventies, eighties and nineties to be able to nail down the different aesthetic eras through which the protagonists –men and women– of this crime drama. Yates, who has worked with Scott on several productions, explained to the New York Times that Gucci has allowed them – it is clear that signing Hayek was a great idea … – to go through their archives to observe in detail what the clothes were like in those years designed the firm.

But beyond this valuable documentation that Gucci has deposited in Florence, Yates and his team have also investigated the creations that Alaïa and Valentino designed at that time, as well as luxury second-hand websites, in which certain products from those decades are sold for very high prices. From the documentation process on the fashion section, it has also emerged that Lady Gaga has been very involved, which shows the relevance that this issue will have in the film. In fact, it has been known that the artist has worn a total of 54 different outfits throughout the filming. For men's clothing, they have had the support of Zegna, which augurs neat results.

And what does Reggiani think of the film and all the hype it has caused again? Far from disappearing in shame over her pitiful resume, Reggiani considers herself fully integrated into society and makes statements to the press both when asked and when not. “I am upset that Lady Gaga is impersonating me in the new Ridley Scott film without even having the courtesy or common sense to come and meet me. It has nothing to do with money, because I will not receive a single penny from the film. It's common sense and respect. I think that any good actor would first have to know the person he's going to play. I think it is not right that they have not contacted me," he told the Ansa agency. The glamor has faded and the blood has dried, but the stravaganza remains intact.