Greta Scacchi

One of the reasons why I enjoy the repeats of Bergerac is the casting of the young actors and actresses who appear on it. In the first series – made in 1981 – appeared a young actress aged 21. I thought at first she was Liz Hurley because of  her fine facial features. In fact it was Greta Scacchi who went onto to enjoy a stupendous career  as a film and stage actress.

She was born in Milan in 1960. Her father was an art dealer and her English mother a dancer. After their divorce her mother and Greta moved to England but – on her mother’s remarriage to an academic from Perth, West Australia – she moved there and acquired Australian citizenship.

She then returned to England to study at the Bristol Old Vic.

Her looks, her fluency in English, French, Italian and German and her training at a stage school of excellence soon earned her film parts beyond Bergerac, notably in White Mischief and Presumed Innocent.

She acted both on stage and films into her sixties and was particularly impressive as Laura Crocker Harris in the remake of The Browning Version.

She showed she had her own mind regarding the parts she accepted by refusing the Sharon Stone rôle in Basic Instinct.

In the Bergerac episode (The Hood and the Harlequin) she played the lover of a French master criminal and one could appreciate, even at an early age, her magnetism and independence of spirit.

It is sometimes – but in my view incorrectly – thought that Italian leading film actresses started and ended with Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale and Gina Lollabrigida. However, Greta Scacchi’s career confirms that the reservoir of Italian acting talent did not dry up.