David Merrick produced and Vincente Minnelli directed a stage play about Mata Hari with Marisa in the title role opposite Pernell Roberts in 1968. It was a flop and never made it to Broadway.
According to her autobiography, she had relationships with Stephen Boyd, Espartaco Santoni, Helmut Berger, Warren Beatty, Robert Evans, Michel Piccoli, Julián Mateos, Walter Giller, Roman Polanski, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Alain Delon and Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli.
Changed her name because she thought that "Marlies Moitzi" sounded too "steirisch" (from the Styrian province of Austria) for an international audience.
Decided to become an actress after seeing Greta Garbo in Camille (1936) as a child. Coincidentally, Mell later starred in an ill-fated Broadway production based on another Garbo film, Mata Hari (1931).
From 1972 to 1984, she had a dog named Rocco. She bought him in Madrid while she was filming Pena de muerte (1973) with Fernando Rey.
Had a lifelong crush on Curd Jürgens.
Had a miscarriage in 1969. Father of the child was her longtime companion Pier Luigi Torri, with whom she lived for about three years. According to her autobiography, the relationship was an ordeal. During that time Torri produced one of Marisa's better (yet unsuccessful) films, Senza via d'uscita (1970), co-starring Philippe Leroy. He had to leave Italy in 1971 after a notorious cocaine scandal to avoid prison.
Her favorite actresses were Greta Garbo and Dorothy Dandridge, whom she admired for her beauty.
In 1963 she was involved in a serious automobile accident in France. For six hours she lay unconscious, not knowing that she was close to losing her right eye. The disfigurement extended to her lip as well. After that, she spent two years undergoing plastic surgery, and no damage remained in her face except a little curl at her upper lip.
In 1964 she refused to sign a contract in Hollywood running for seven years. She said that the payment would have been great, but that "the contract was a whole book. I think that even to go to the toilet I would have needed a permission."
Married Henri Tucci shortly after finishing her actor's school, but got divorced a few years later.
Measurements: 38-24-38 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)
Most famous for the sexy film role of criminal mastermind Eva Kant in Danger: Diabolik (1968).
Of her own films, Ordered to Love (1961) was the one she disliked the most.
Of her own films, Masquerade (1965), French Dressing (1964), Casanova 70 (1965), and Marta (1971) were her favorites.
On November 26, 1977, she gave birth to a baby daughter, Louisa Erika, in Rome. It was a premature delivery, and the girl died the same day. The child was interred at the Camposanto Teutonico cemetery in Rome. Mell never revealed the father's identity.
One of her hobbies was archeology.
Posed nude for the Italian version of Playboy in November of 1976.
She died of cancer, in poverty, with only a few friends attending her funeral.
She graduated together with Senta Berger, Heidelinde Weis and Erika Pluhar from Vienna's Max-Reinhard-Seminar.