Debauched world of Hollywood fraudster who killed off 007… while trying to bed A-listers and harem of model mistresses
HE was the knight in shining armour who rode in to save Hollywood’s most prestigious studio from collapse.
But within weeks of Giancarlo Parretti buying MGM for $1.3billion in 1990, with a vow to “make the lion roar again”, he had run half of Tinseltown into the ground.
Film production shuddered to a halt, cheques to screen legends including Dustin Hoffman and Sylvester Stallone bounced and the 17th movie in the money-spinning James Bond franchise was put on ice - effectively killing off Timothy Dalton's stint as 007.
Parretti presided over mass sackings while surrounding himself with attractive young women – once pulling a director off a John Candy movie to demand he screen-test a former Miss Universe who he had just met on a whirlwind tour of Los Angeles.
The flamboyant Italian was later revealed to be a charlatan with suspected links to the Mafia, who went on the run after being arrested on suspicion of cooking the books.
Parretti’s colourful stories – from being abandoned as a baby on church steps to befriending Churchill and Pope John Paul II – seem more fantasy than reality.
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His $9million 14-bed mansion in Beverly Hills, where he installed wife Maria and their three children, was heaving with masterpieces by the likes of Goya and Picasso. He drove around in a $200,000 Rolls Royce and flew between continents in a $20million Gulf Jetstream.
He loved to dance at his own LA nightclub, Tramps of London, and hold court in the Italian restaurant, Madeo, which he also owned.
Parretti also bankrolled a throng of wannabe actresses, including a Miss Universe runner-up who was paid more than $387,000 over two years despite not landing a screen role.
The Hollywood boss gave them around $1million worth of jewellery – all with Credit Lyonnais loans obtained by bribery, according to documents filed by the FBI.
Using his privileged position, he also cosied up to megastars and allegedly tried to lure Meryl Streep into bed at the Beverly Hills Wiltshire – but she laughed him out of the room.
With limited English and even less knowledge of movies, his financial success was a mystery – although he owned a string of hotels, insurance companies and the indie film company Cannon Films.
The incredible story is told in the BBC2 documentary, The Man Who Definitely Didn’t Steal Hollywood, which remarkably hears from the on-the-run fraudster himself.
In an exclusive interview his former PA, Arlene Howard, tells The Sun how she had to brush the clueless "buffoon" up on classic movies before he spoke to the press, and manage his increasingly flamboyant image.
“For his first press conference, when he took over MGM, I thought, wouldn’t it be great to have a lion on a stool, totally trained and for Giancarlo to be handed the reins,” she recalls.
“But he was scared to get near the lion."
She adds: “I laughed and laughed throughout my time with him."
'Rags to riches'
Although evasive about his business dealings, Parretti loves telling his rags to riches story, from humble beginnings in the small town of Orvieto, Italy.
“I was abandoned at night, as a little baby, just a few hours old, bundled up in rags and left on the steps of the church,” he says.
“I was taken to an orphanage where I lived for five years. The woman who became my mamma really wanted a daughter but when she arrived at the orphanage I clutched onto her, so she adopted me. No one can choose their mamma but I chose mine.”
As a young man he worked as a dish washer in restaurants before becoming a waiter and leaving home.
James Bond actors
SEAN Connery was the first James Bond.
He brought 007 to the screen in 1962's Dr No and stayed as the iconic agent until 1983.
However, creator Ian Fleming didn't want him to play the MI6 agent.
He thought the 6ft 2in Scot was not refined enough for the role.
Australian actor George Lazenby was the second actor to take on Bond.
He only did one film in the role, 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
It's alleged he never signed a contract and was persuaded by his agent to leave the role as it would quickly become outdated.
Roger Moore made his debut as 007 in 1973’s Live And Let Die and stayed for seven films.
A TV actor, he was known as Simon Templar in The Saint and in The Persuaders!
His last outing was 1985’s A View To A Kill.
Timothy Dalton played Bond only twice, once in 1987’s The Living Daylights and later in 1989’s Licence To Kill.
His version of the agent was darker and more serious than previous incarnations, with the actor wanting him to be less of a womaniser.
Pierce Brosnan made his 007 debut in 1995’s GoldenEye and went on to play the spy three more times.
He pushed for Bond to stop smoking, saying: “Smoking causes cancer therefore he doesn’t smoke.”
His last film was 2002’s Die Another Day.
Daniel Craig revamped the James Bond franchise with 2006’s Casino Royale.
Fans were initially not happy with his casting, setting up a petition against it.
But he became a much-loved 007, ending with 2021’s No Time To Die.
“I wanted to go around the world. First, I worked on ships – the Queen Elizabeth, the largest ship in the world. Afterwards I lived in London for three years and in the restaurant at the Savoy Hotel where I worked, Churchill usually came for lunch.
"After I was there for a week Churchill told the manager that he wanted me to serve him. The manager said I didn’t speak good English but Churchill replied, ‘Don’t worry. He’s very friendly.’
"Later, I opened a restaurant on Carnaby Street. By the time I came back (to Italy), I had a lot of money.”
Somehow, he managed to buy a hotel in Pesaro, followed by another in Rome, a football club and a chain of 300 hotels in Spain.
'Harem of models'
Parretti's move into films was typically unlikely, explaining he was commissioned by a cardinal of France to remake the classic 1943 film, The Song of Bernadette, about a Catholic saint.
He bizarrely explains the Church wanted it remade because one of the actresses had become a porn star - and that his 1988 version of the film was so moving that it made the Pope cry.
The documentary points out that none of the actors in the original film were ever porn stars.
Another ‘business opportunity’ came with the purchase of the ailing Cannon Films, known for its action-packed exploitation films in the 1980s, including Hell Squad, which featured machine-gun toting, bikini-clad women described as ‘curvacious commandos.’
The company’s top stars included the likes of Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme and Sylvester Stallone.
An FBI report later detailed how Parretti put a "harem" of young women under contract as "actresses" to work as his mistresses while at Cannon - something which is not reported in the documentary.
It was his time at the studio that provided the platform for the audacious leap to gain control of MGM.
Bizarre bet
The move, as Parretti tells it, was a result of a bet between former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Gianni Agnelli, then Head of Ferrari, Fiat and Juventus F.C.
He claims he met the two powerful men in a restaurant in New York in 1990 after Agnelli noticed he was dining alone and invited him over to join them.
He says: “That morning, The New York Times had published that MGM was for sale. The price was $1,350 million. Agnelli said to Kissinger, ‘See this man here, so young? If he wants, he can buy MGM.’
"Kissinger laughed, saying, ‘That’s impossible.’ And as a joke, Agnelli said, ‘Let’s bet on it. If within six to eight months from now Parretti buys MGM, you’ll buy dinner for everyone.’
"It was a gamble because there was no guarantee I could put together enough money.”
At the time, the once-proud studio – which produced such classics as Singing In The Rain, The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind and boasted “more stars than there are in heaven” – was on the brink of financial collapse.
Over the next nine months of negotiation, Parretti says he stumped up half of the money with the French bank Credit Lyonnais supplying the rest.
This is contradicted by Jeff Isaacs, former federal prosecutor in the US who later investigated the deal.
He says virtually all the money to buy MGM came from Credit Lyonnais, who loaned it to Parretti.
Tried to 'bribe' president
“During the negotiating period I managed to arrange for Giancarlo to meet President George Bush at the Oval Office,” says Parretti's PA, Arlene.
“On the way there, I told him not to say anything about buying MGM. He assured me he wouldn’t but as soon as he saw the President he said, in perfect English, ‘I just completed the deal with MGM. If you want to buy any stock, that's fine and you don't have to pay me back.’
"With that, two guys appeared and carried him out of the White House.
“Bush’s Press Secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, said to me, ‘Did he just try to bribe the President of the United States in the Oval Office?’ I said, ‘Sounds like it, doesn't it?’”
The purchase hit the headlines with media outlets questioning who Parretti was and how he had put the deal together, sparking rumours that he was involved with the Mafia or using Libyan money via connections with Gaddafi.
He denied it all, boasting, “I will make the lion roar again.”
Doubling down, he even hosted a glitzy 'coming-out' party as the new toast of Hollywood, organising a black-tie ball attended by the likes of Scott Baio, Pamela Anderson and Bond it-girl Britt Eklund.
“He knew absolutely nothing about film. I got a call from a journalist in Milan asking what Giancarlo’s favourite movie was.
"I put the guy on hold while I asked him and he just shrugged. And I said, ‘What about Gone With the Wind?’ He said, ‘Okay. What is Gone With the Wind?’ So I had to tell him the whole story in four minutes, in Italian, with a guy holding on from Milan.”
In a subsequent TV interview, Parretti is seen gushing about his love of Gone With The Wind.
He said: “ I went to see it ten times. I was interested in the story and one can recognise oneself in that film, which is so important and so dramatic.”
Fleeing the country
Within weeks of the MGM deal, things began to fall apart.
Unable to pay debts and payments to its stars, he cut costs by quickly firing 270 employees. Confidence was at rock bottom, film production ceased and Credit Lyonnaise tried to oust him, filing a law suit for ‘serious mismanagement.’
Bond producers were so spooked by his dismal leadership that they halted development on the latest project, bringing a premature end to the era of Timothy Dalton, who had initially agreed to film a third movie as 007 following 1989's Licence to Kill.
Parretti also faced an FBI investigation for alleged financial irregularities amid allegations he bribed Credit Lyonnais staff to authorise the unsecured loans.
California Superior Court Judge Irving Shimer later observed that the French bankers weren't "interested in making movies. They were interested in getting girls on the yacht…That's why bankers come to Hollywood - lots and lots of pretty girls."
Parretti was arrested and remained in jail for ten days while negotiations to have him extradited to France took place, before being released on condition that he surrender his passport and remain in the country.
But he fled across the border to Mexico and made his way back to Italy just before he was due to be sentenced for fraud and perjury. In his absence, Parretti was sentenced to four years in prison in France.
“I think there’s some truth to his colourful stories, but probably only about ten per cent,” says Arlene.
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“Yes, he had all these masterpieces from famous artists such as Caravaggio, Goya, Picasso. The only trouble was, the paint was still wet on them!”
The Man Who Definitely Didn’t Steal Hollywood is on Friday October 18th on BBC Two at 9pm and available straight after on BBC iPlayer.