Willy Rizzo, 80, is a photographer and furniture designer. After covering the Nuremberg trials, he photographed Audrey Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, Salvador Dalí and Fred Astaire, as well as Marilyn Monroe just weeks before she died. He has worked for Paris Match since its launch 60 years ago and started designing furniture in the late 1960s. His clients have included Brigitte Bardot and Otto Preminger and he has recently collaborated with antiques dealer Mallett to create 20 new pieces. He lives in Paris with his wife, Dominique.
How did you find this apartment and what do you like about this quartier of Paris?
My wife and I moved here 30 years ago. There wasn’t much property available around here at the time and we were just lucky to find this place. We rented it for about 10 years and then we found the money to buy it. We liked the layout of the apartment and the high ceilings, the plaster mouldings and the wide doors opening out on to balconies – features that you find with these 19th-century Parisian apartment blocks. I love the 8th arrondissement. It’s central, it’s lively, it’s not all about business and not too chic. Also, from our balcony we can admire the Eiffel tower. I like to stroll along the Avenue de Montaigne and look in the smart shop windows for my promenade de santé. There are lots of restaurants and cafés here and every evening we walk down the Avenue Georges V to the cinemas in the Champs Elysées. We see all kinds of films, new releases and older ones. Our three children were born here too. They’ve now left home but they still come and see us often.
Do you have your own designs here?
Yes, there’s a coffee table that is mine and it goes well with the romantic 18th-century pieces that I like – for example, a Japanese sculpture of birds or a Louis XVI console table.
How did you start making furniture?
MY FAVOURITE THINGS
A Leica and a love song
My Leica. This is my favourite camera and I take it with me everywhere, whether I’m photographing people professionally or just taking pictures of family and friends.
A cassette of my favourite song. I heard this beautiful love song in Italy once, in a taxi, and I asked the driver who was singing. He didn’t know and I’ve never found out the name but I did manage to get a recording of it. I love it and so I always have this cassette with me.
My “smoking” or, as the English say, my dinner jacket. I like to wear this Lanvin shirt with it. I always wear these ruby collar studs with it too. It’s a bit of fun, really.
“The Comedians” by Graham Greene. This is the true reporting of a war journalist. He describes things very accurately and goes straight to the heart of the issue. I fell in love with the hotel he describes in Haiti. I love Anglo-Saxon literature written by journalists. One of the things I’ve always kept is my press card, number 1816, one of the first to be issued in France at the liberation in 1945.
I was in Rome with my second wife and we had been thinking about moving to the city because I was working there a lot for magazines such as Vogue Italia. This was in the mid-1960s and it was a time of slight madness in Europe, with the success of La Dolce Vita and the like. While my wife was having her hair done I asked the hairdresser: “Do you know of any estate agents near here? I want to rent an apartment or a studio near the Piazza di Spagna.” He told me that it was very difficult to find properties in this part of Rome but there was an agency in the next street. So I wandered over and the agent said it was hopeless, too, but he knew of a little old shirt factory nearby that might be available. We went there and I said: “I’ll take it.” It was 120 lire a month – a gift. The estate agent said to me: “Do you always do business like this?” I still hadn’t told my wife so I went back to the hairdressers and said to her “I’ve rented an apartment for us.” The whole thing had taken about 30 minutes. She was surprised but very pleased. The problem was that I couldn’t find any furniture to go with it. The only thing around at that time was in the Bauhaus style but it reminded me of the kind of furniture you find in a doctor’s waiting room. I wanted something more exciting. I’d decorated the walls, for instance, by blowing gold powder on to the paint while it was still wet. I started designing some pieces and the hairdresser helped me find the artisans and craftsmen I needed. They put me in touch with other craftsmen – everyone knew everyone else there. They were a bit surprised that I’d had no formal training in furniture design but when they saw the results of our work they were very impressed. My furniture appeared in House & Garden and other magazines. People found my furniture sympathique.
What has been the inspiration for these new pieces?
I’ve used simple, natural materials such as marble, granite, lacquered wood and brass – nothing synthetic – and all using artisanal skills. It’s very much my own view of what good furniture should be.
You have plenty of books and other examples of your photography here.
When I take photographs I always want to add a little something extra to the picture. I had heard Marlene Dietrich singing about Berlin. It was wonderful. So when I went to photograph her in the late 1950s I bought her a record player and she sang the song for me. I photographed Brigitte Bardot when she was very young, before she became so famous – and so tanned. She was a young girl having fun in Paris. Later she bought a round table of mine for her house in St Tropez. I could tell how sad Marilyn Monroe was when I was photographing her. The secret service were ringing every five minutes from Washington, the maid told me.
Tell me about your secret passage.
This passageway just off our bedroom is where I keep my non-professional photographs – pictures I’ve taken of my family, friends and other people I’ve known such as Françoise Sagan, Christina Onassis, Oleg Cassini, Bill Clinton and Mick Jagger in St Tropez.
You have two beautiful murals of Naples in your dining room.
I was born in Naples. My father was an American whose parents had come to the US from southern Italy. During a visit to Naples he met my mother, fell in love with her and married her. They went on to Paris but one day, when I was just four, my father suddenly left, leaving my mother and me in Paris, which is where I grew up. But I spent my holidays with my grandparents in Naples and Capri. That was where I first fell in love with photography –- my mother gave me an AgfaBox camera when I was 12. I still love Naples.
