Luchino Visconti  Luchino Visconti di Modrone, Count of Lonate Pozzolo (; 2 November 1906 – 17 March 1976), was an Italian theatre, opera and cinema director, as well as a screenwriter. He is best known for his films "Ossessione" (1943), "Senso" (1954), "Rocco and His Brothers" (1960), "The Leopard" (1963), "The Damned" (1969), "Death in Venice" (1971) and "The Innocent" (1976). Luchino Visconti was born into a prominent noble family in Milan, one of seven children of Giuseppe Visconti di Modrone, Duke of Grazzano Visconti and Count of Lonate Pozzolo, and his wife Carla ("née" Erba, heiress to Erba Pharmaceuticals). He was formally known as Count "don" Luchino Visconti di Modrone, and his family is a branch of the Visconti of Milan. In his early years, he was exposed to art, music and theatre: he studied cello with the Italian cellist and composer Lorenzo de Paolis (1890–1965) and met the composer Giacomo Puccini, the conductor Arturo Toscanini and the writer Gabriele D'Annunzio. During World War II, Visconti joined the Italian Communist Party. Visconti made no secret of his bisexuality. His last partner was the Austrian actor Helmut Berger, who played Martin in Visconti's film "The Damned". Berger also appeared in Visconti's "Ludwig" in 1973 and "Conversation Piece" in 1974, along with Burt Lancaster. Other lovers included Franco Zeffirelli, who also worked as part of the crew in production design, as assistant director, and other roles in a number of Visconti's films, operas, and theatrical productions. According to Visconti's autobiography, he and Umberto II of Italy had a homosexual relationship during their youth in the 1920s. Visconti smoked 120 cigarettes a day. He suffered a stroke in 1972, but continued to smoke heavily. He died in Rome of another stroke at the age of 69, on 17 March 1976. There is a museum dedicated to the director's work in Ischia. He began his filmmaking career as an assistant director on Jean Renoir's "Toni" (1935) and "Partie de campagne" (1936) through the intercession of their common friend Coco Chanel.