Mirella Ricciardi
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14 July 1931
Author
Adventurer
Mirella Ricciardi | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mirella Rocco 14 July 1931 |
| Occupations | Photographer, primarily of African subjects Author Adventurer |
| Spouse | Lorenzo Ricciardi |
| Children | 2 |
| Parent(s) | Mario Rocco (1893–1975) Giselle Bunau-Varilla (1892–1978) |
Mirella Ricciardi (born 14 July 1931) is a Kenyan-born photographer and author.[1][2] She also appeared in Michelangelo Antonioni's 1962 film L'Eclisse, playing the part of a woman whose backstory bore some resemblance to her own.[3]
Mirella Rocco was born on 14 July 1931, the elder daughter of Mario Rocco (1893–1975) and Giselle Bunau-Varilla (1892–1978). Her father, originally from Naples, was an Italian cavalry officer who had taken part in the First World War. Her mother was a French-born sculptor who had once been a pupil of Rodin.[4] Both her parents were married (but not to each other) when they set off for Africa at the end of 1928.[5] They initially planned to elope in the Belgian Congo and make a fortune by killing elephants and selling the ivory. However, after a year-long safari Giselle became pregnant and the couple headed for Kenya to find a hospital.[4] They finally settled in Kenya when Mirella's elder brother, Dorian Rocco (1930–2013), was born. The youngest of the three children, Orla, was born in 1933.
Mario Rocco acquired 5,000 acres on the shores of Lake Naivasha which he farmed. The children enjoyed the privileged childhood familiar to many "white" Kenyan contemporaries in the 1930s. When Mirella Rocco was just nine, and her father was forty-seven, the East African campaign came to Kenya in 1940. Since Kenya was then a British colony, Mario Rocco, as an Italian, was arrested and taken to a camp at Kabete, before being transferred to South Africa for four years.[citation needed]
For two years during the 1950s, Mirella Rocco undertook an internship in Paris with the fashion photographer Harry Meerson.[6] In 1957, a press photograph of her sitting in front of a tourism poster for Uganda and Kenya, which was taken while she was visiting to New York, bore a caption stating that back in Kenya she had already "acted as cameraman, guide and hunter on more than 15 safaris".[7] But it was evidently clear that it was the camera that piqued her interest.
On 26 May 1957, she appeared as the "mystery guest" on an episode of the American TV show What's My Line?[8][better source needed]
